Background
Mike's Solo Medley consists of parts of multiple songs. It mashes up "Skin To Bone", "Wretches And Kings", "Remember The Name" by Fort Minor, and "In My Remains". It began with Mike performing a drum sample intro before the synths of "Skin To Bone" started with the Mario Savio speech in "Wretches and Kings" being played over it, with Joe distorting and glitching it up. A mashup of both songs made the instrumental as Mike rapped a "hybrid" verse of "Wretches and Kings", taking pieces of the first and second verse of the song. After a short solo from Joe, a sped up iteration of "Remember The Name" would follow through, with Mike rapping the chorus of the song and then performing a random verse on top of it (sometimes by request). The keys from "In My Remains" sound during the second part of the "Remember The Name" portion.
Live
Mike's Solo debuted right at the start of The Hunting Party touring cycle, in the middle of the set after "Waiting For The End". The first few performances featured Mike rapping his verse from the Nick Catchdubs remix of "Skin To Bone" from Recharged. It also featured a transition outro that led into "Numb", and later on the 2014 Version of "Dirt Off Your Shoulder/Lying From You". Mike began changing it up after the first shows of the Summer European Tour, and began periodically rapping the first verse of "When They Come For Me" starting in Moscow, Russia instead of the "Skin To Bone" remix during the "Remember The Name" portion of the solo. A few days later, Mike changed it again during Rock am Ring 2014, where he rapped the first verse of "Hands Held High" over it, making it the first time since the end of the Minutes To Midnight touring cycle that the song had appeared in a setlist. This version only happened once more, at the end of that tour at Greenfield 2014. On the Carnivores Tour, Mike began rapping a hybrid verse of "Remember The Name" during that part of the song, featuring a mashup of his first two verses of the song. This became the regular verse that he would perform, replacing the "Skin To Bone" remix, which only appeared a hand full of times after he introduced the hybrid verse. While never performed to the public, Mike rapped the second verse of "When They Come For Me" during his solo at the private production rehearsal in West Palm Beach, Florida. The song featured one last new verse, that only appeared once: Mike rapped a verse of "High Voltage" over his medley in Bremen, Germany at the end of the Fall European Tour, making it the first time the song appeared in a Linkin Park setlist since it was featured during the extended intro of "Points Of Authority" in 2009, at the show in Stuttgart, Germany. The song remained in the same spot of the setlist until mid-2015, when a new version of "Remember The Name" and "Welcome" replaced it. It was last performed at the Amnesia Rockfest in June 2015.
Variations
Last Updated: September 16, 2016
| Type | Description | First Played | Last Played |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intro | Hard Start | December 12, 2014 | May 17, 2015 |
| Outro | Ext. Transition Outro | May 24, 2014 | June 20, 2015 |
| Alternative | w/ "Skin To Bone" Nick Catchdubs Remix Verse | May 24, 2014 | January 15, 2015 |
| Alternative | w/ "When They Come For Me" Verse 1 | June 2, 2014 | September 9, 2014 |
| Alternative | w/ "Hands Held High" Verse 1 | June 7, 2012 | June 12, 2012 |
| Alternative | w/ "When They Come For Me" Verse 2 | August 6, 2014 | August 6, 2014 |
| Alternative | w/ "Remember The Name" Hybrid Verse | August 13, 2014 | June 20, 2015 |
| Alternative | w/ "High Voltage" Verse 1 | November 20, 2014 | November 20, 2014 |
Lyrics
Mario Savio:
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,
Makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part.
You can't even passively take part,
And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels,
Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus,
And you've got to make it stop."
To save face / how low can you go?
Talk a lot of game but yet you don't know
Static on the way / make us all say "whoa"
The people up top push the people down low
Get down
And I'm running it like that
The front of the attack is exactly where I'm at
Somewhere in between
The kick and the hi hat
The pen and the contract
The pitch and the contact
So get with the combat / I'm letting 'em know
There ain't shit you can say to make me back down, no
So / push the button let the whole thing blow
Spinning everything outta control
Everybody go
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill,
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain,
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!
I'm on some taxidermy rap shit, talk about some raw game
You're nothing but a trophy mounted on my door frame
I spit that propane, light you with a slow flame
And watch you burn until there's nothin' but a gold chain
Yeah you'll be some crispy critters
You'll wish you with us
You'll wish what we did, you did it
You can't, you kiddin? I don't have a shoe you'll fit in
You're as soft as a motherfuckin' newborn kitten
I'm an animal, tearing flesh into bone
Randomly rippin' everything gone
Unless they forget what then let it be known
I'll bury every competitor, every predator
Anyone ever forget it, you'll regret it forever
Never been nothing short of a legend, you peasants will learn
I'll stay standin' in the front like I'm forgetting my turn
For these matchstick rappers, this is meeting adjourned
I ain't even gotta match them, I'm just letting them burn!
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill,
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
Five percent pleasure and fifty percent pain
Mario Savio:
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,
Makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part.
You can't even passively take part,
And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels,
Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus,
And you've got to make it stop."
To save face / how low can you go?
Talk a lot of game but yet you don't know
Static on the way / make us all say "whoa"
The people up top push the people down low
Get down
And I'm running it like that
The front of the attack is exactly where I'm at
Somewhere in between
The kick and the hi hat
The pen and the contract
The pitch and the contact
So get with the combat / I'm letting 'em know
There ain't shit you can say to make me back down, no
So / push the button let the whole thing blow
Spinning everything outta control
Everybody go
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill,
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain,
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!
I am not / a pattern to be followed
The pill that I'm on is a tough one to swallow
I'm not a criminal / not a role model
Not a born leader I'm a tough act to follow
I am not / the fortune and the fame
Or the same person telling you to forfeit the game
I came in the ring like a dog on a chain
And found out the underbelly's sicker than it seems
And it seems ugly / but it can get worse
'Cause even a blueprint is a gift and a curse
'Cause once you got a theory of how the thing works
Everybody wants the next thing to be just like the first
And I'm not a robot
I'm not a monkey
I will not dance even if the beat's funky
Opposite of lazy / far from a punk
Ya'll ought to stop talking start trying to catch up
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill,
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
Five percent pleasure and fifty percent pain
Mario Savio:
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,
Makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part.
You can't even passively take part,
And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels,
Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus,
And you've got to make it stop."
To save face / how low can you go?
Talk a lot of game but yet you don't know
Static on the way / make us all say "whoa"
The people up top push the people down low
Get down
And I'm running it like that
The front of the attack is exactly where I'm at
Somewhere in between
The kick and the hi hat
The pen and the contract
The pitch and the contact
So get with the combat / I'm letting 'em know
There ain't shit you can say to make me back down, no
So / push the button let the whole thing blow
Spinning everything outta control
Everybody go
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill,
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain,
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!
Turn my mic up louder, I got to say something
Lightweights step it aside when we come in
Feel it in your chest / The syllables get pumping
People on the street they panic and start running
Words on loose leaf sheet complete coming
I jump in my mind and summon the rhyme I'm dumping
Hearing the blind I promise to let the sun in
Sick of the dark ways we march to the drumming
Jump when they tell us that they wanna see jumping
Fuck that / I wanna see some fists pumping
Risk something / Take back what's yours
Say something that you know they might attack you for
Cause I'm sick of being treated like I have before
Like it's stupid standing for what I'm standing for
Like this war's really just a different brand of war
Like it doesn't cater to rich and abandon poor
Mario Savio:
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,
Makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part.
You can't even passively take part,
And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels,
Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus,
And you've got to make it stop."
To save face / how low can you go?
Talk a lot of game but yet you don't know
Static on the way / make us all say "whoa"
The people up top push the people down low
Get down
And I'm running it like that
The front of the attack is exactly where I'm at
Somewhere in between
The kick and the hi hat
The pen and the contract
The pitch and the contact
So get with the combat / I'm letting 'em know
There ain't shit you can say to make me back down, no
So / push the button let the whole thing blow
Spinning everything outta control
Everybody go
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill,
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain,
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!
Mike! - He doesn't need his name up in lights,
He just wants to be heard whether it's the beat or the mic,
He feels so unlike everybody else, alone,
In spite of the fact that some people still think that they know him,
But fuck 'em, he knows the code,
It's not about the salary,
It's all about reality and makin' some noise,
Makin' the story, makin' sure his clique stays up,
That means when he puts it down y'all are pickin' it up
Forget Mike, nobody really knows how or why he works so hard,
It seems like he's never got time,
Because he writes every note and he writes every line,
And I've seen him at work when that light goes on in his mind,
It's like a design is written in his head every time,
Before he even touches a key or speaks in a rhyme,
And those motherfuckers he runs with, they're still in their prime
Ridiculous, without even trying, how does he do it?!
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill,
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
Five percent pleasure and fifty percent pain
Mario Savio:
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,
Makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part.
You can't even passively take part,
And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels,
Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus,
And you've got to make it stop."
To save face / how low can you go?
Talk a lot of game but yet you don't know
Static on the way / make us all say "whoa"
The people up top push the people down low
Get down
And I'm running it like that
The front of the attack is exactly where I'm at
Somewhere in between
The kick and the hi hat
The pen and the contract
The pitch and the contact
So get with the combat / I'm letting 'em know
There ain't shit you can say to make me back down, no
So / push the button let the whole thing blow
Spinning everything outta control
Everybody go
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill,
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain,
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!
I've been digging into crates ever since I was living in space
Before the ratrace, before monkeys had human traits
I mastered numerology and Big Bang theology
Performed lobotomies with telekinetic psychology
Invented the mic so I could start blessing it
Chin-checking kids to make my point like an impressionist
Many men have tried to shake us
But I twist mic cords to double-helixes
And show them what I'm made of
I buckle knees like leg-braces
Cast a spell of instrumentalness on all of you emcees who hate us
So you can try on, leave you without a shoulder to cry on
From now to infinity let icons be by-gones
I fire-bomb, ghostly notes haunt this
I tried threats but moved onto a promise
I stomp shit with or without an accomplice
And run the gauntlet with whoever that wants this
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill,
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
Five percent pleasure and fifty percent pain