One More Light (Song)

"One More Light"
Single by Linkin Park
from the album One More Light
Working title:	One More Light
Recorded:	2016
Released:	May 19, 2017
Format:	4:15
Stems:	Leaked Multitracks
Live debut:	March 6, 2017
Last performed:	October 27, 2017
Writer:	Mike Shinoda, Eg White
Producer:	Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Emily Wright
Label:	Warner Bros. Records
Linkin Park singles chronology Talking To Myself (2017) One More Light (2017) Lost (2023)
One More Light tracklist
Nobody Can Save Me Good Goodbye Talking To Myself Battle Symphony Invisible Heavy Sorry For Now Halfway Right One More Light Sharp Edges

This article is about the song "One More Light". For the album, see One More Light.

"One More Light" is the ninth and title track from Linkin Park's seventh studio album, One More Light. The song was written with Eg White about a friend of the band's who passed away after a fight with cancer. Phoenix, Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn have mentioned it being their favorite song on the album.

The first title track Linkin Park has ever done, "One More Light" was deemed to be too important of a song for the band to simply remain a song on the album, so the decision was made to title the album after the song. "One More Light" is a more stripped down song, featuring no percussion and being composed of loops of piano and guitar. The track started getting radio airplay following Chester Bennington's death on July 20, 2017 and was officially released as a single a few months later. It impacted Hot/Modern/AC stations on October 2, and Top 40/Mainstream radio on October 3.

Background

Mike Shinoda wrote a song with Ross Golan. The initial lyric idea in the chorus before it changed was "I wish I was Christopher Walken" and the song ended up being "One More Light".

On November 14, 2016, Mike Shinoda revealed that he had worked with British songwriter Eg White on a song. In an interview leading up to the reveal of the album's lead single, "Heavy", Shinoda revealed that White had worked with him on the song "One More Light" while Brad Delson attended the funeral of one of the band's friends.

It took Mike a week to convince Eg White, who hates Los Angeles, to come in town from London, but when White booked his flight, the band found out a friend had passed away. The funeral was on a Friday, the same day White was arriving, so they decided Brad would go to the funeral to represent the band and Mike would meet White in the studio. When asked what he wanted to write about by White, Shinoda said that the only thing he could think about was the friend who had passed. He revealed that, in spite of the horrible inevitability of loss, the song is about letting people know that you care, mentioning the lyrics "Who cares if one more light goes out, one more person dies? I care."

The friend was Amy Zaret, a 25-year veteran of Warner Bros. Records who passed away in October 2015 following a cancer diagnosis. Mike said, "We had a friend who worked for the record label for a long time and came up with us from years and years ago. She started out in radio promo and was basically driving us to the local radio stations in the U.S. Midwest, eventually getting promoted and promoted. At some point last year, I suddenly heard that she'd got cancer - and then all of a sudden she had died. We knew we absolutely had to write about what happened. It's a sad song, but the pay-off is that when something dramatic and painful like that happens, the most important thing to do is to connect with the people you love and remind them you care about them."

Mike originally sang lead vocals on the song, until the band went with Chester’s version right before the album was completed. The band surprised some of the people who worked at Warner with the song, and people reacted very emotionally to it, with some weeping, giving hugs, and telling stories. Phoenix actually cried the first time Mike played the song to the band.

Before One More Light was released, Mike Shinoda gave Waves a song-by-song glimpse into the album's production and mixing. For "One More Light", he said, "The mic was actually a Flea 47, which is a Neumann U47 replica. Once every few albums, we do a blind test mic check session, where we rent up to ten mics and test our vocals on them, to see if we need a different mic for the music we’re making. Voices change over time, so it’s a good habit to get into. We compared multiple U47s to the Flea, and the Flea won in a blind test. We had a few different plugin chains for the vocals, which varied from song to song but usually had the CLA-2A and CLA-76 compressors, H-Delay, and – used sparingly – the C4 compressor."

Remix

"One More Light" was remixed by Steve Aoki as a tribute to Chester Bennington and sent out to fans who bought tickets for Linkin Park's show in honor of the late singer with the following message: "Thank you for purchasing tickets to Linkin Park & Friends: Celebrate Life In Honor Of Chester Bennington. Our friend Steve Aoki has remixed the title track from our album "One More Light". The song will be officially released on October 26th, but we wanted you to have it first." Aoki wrote on Facebook, "Thanks to Linkin Park for giving me the privilege to be a part of this song in this way. Keep Chester close to your heart and play this one loud! Sing it loud! We all miss you so much."

Music Video

Lyric Video

The lyric video for "One More Light" was started by the German fan Nicola Drilling back on May 20, 2017. She wrote, "The basic ideia of this is to make a lyric video for a song of the new Linkin Park record with lots of Fans in it, just as the one I did for 30 Seconds to Mars a while ago. All you need to do is to film a short video of you holding a sign with the lyric given to you (or write in on your face/hand/the ground/ whatever you want you can get creative). You can either just show the lyric, sing it or whatever you think is fitting. As soon as I receive all the videos I'll put it together and upload it on YouTube." A preview was uploaded to her YouTube channel, AThousand__Suns, on June 30 and the full video was released on July 14 featuring footage by herself and other 40 fans around the world. It was dedicated to Chester Bennington after his death. She wrote, "Who cares if one more light goes out? We all do. This was actually meant to be an uplifting video but because of the recent passing of Chester Bennington this is going to be some sort of tribute for him now. We love you Chester. We care if One More Light goes out. You will always be our hero and we will always love you." The video was picked up by the band and released as an official lyric video on October 3.

Music Video

The official music video of "One More Light" was directed by Joe Hahn and Mark Fiore and released on September 18, 2017, following Chester Bennington's death on July 20. The video is a tribute to the late vocalist featuring behind the scenes and live footage covering his entire career with the band.

Joe Hahn wrote: "It has been incredibly emotional to work on this, and especially to watch it. I feel that by doing it, we not only faced some of our biggest fears, but it enabled us to use our talents to bring some light to people that need it. As we move forward to the Hollywood Bowl show and beyond, I think about the people that connect with the band, outside and inside our circle. This video is a gesture of good will to the people that want that connection."

Mike Shinoda wrote: "One More Light was written with the intention of sending love to those who lost someone. We now find ourselves on the receiving end. In memorial events, art, videos, and images, fans all over the world have gravitated towards this song as their declaration of love and support for the band and the memory of our dear friend, Chester. We are so very grateful and can’t wait to see you again."

Phoenix wrote: "This is my favorite video we've ever made, and simultaneously the hardest for me to watch."

Video Credits

Artist Name: Linkin Park
Song Name: One More Light
Directors: Joe Hahn, Mark Fiore
Video Commissioner: Devin Sarno
Record Label: Warner Bros. Records
Colorist: Beau Leon

Versions

Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.

Studio

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
One More Light	One More Light	4:15	2016	May 19, 2017
One More Light	Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023	4:11	2016	April 12, 2024	Segues into "Burn It Down".
One More Light	One More Light Instrumentals	4:15	2016		Official instrumental version.

Remix

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
One More Light (Steve Aoki Chester Forever Remix)	One More Light (Steve Aoki Chester Forever Remix)	4:10	2017	October 25, 2017	Sent out for free download on October 25, 2017 to fans who bought tickets for "Linkin Park and Friends Celebrate Life in Honor of Chester Bennington" in MP3 160kbps. Released worldwide on the following day.

Live

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
One More Light	One More Light Live	4:19	June 12, 2017	December 15, 2017

Live

"One More Light" was played live for the first time at a private event held at the Warner Bros. Records building in a stripped down form in March 2017, with Chester on vocals, Mike on piano, and Brad on guitar. The trio performed this stripped down version again when the band stopped by the Spotify headquarters in May to do a Q&A with employees.

"One More Light" was played by the entire band for the first time in Santiago on May 9 between "Breaking The Habit" and a piano version of "Crawling". The song remained in this spot for the remaining of the One More Light Tour, being dropped at select festival shows due to time constraints. The song got a new intro with Mike and Brad playing piano and guitar, respectively, at the band's stop in Krakow.

Upon learning of Chris Cornell's death, Chester, who was his close friend, decided at the last minute to perform and dedicate "One More Light" to him at Jimmy Kimmel on May 18. According to Mike, Chester broke down performing it at soundcheck and they couldn't get through the song, then they went live and he still had trouble at the end of it. The song was later performed by the five surviving members of the band, with Mike taking over for lead vocals, at the Chester Bennington memorial event, being played a half step down to accommodate Mike's range.

In London in March 2019 while touring in support of Post Traumatic, Mike performed "One More Light" for the first and only time on his solo tour. He was joined by Eg White for the performance, who had worked with Mike on the song.

Mike had previously said in late 2018 about the song, "It really is a hard song to sing, emotionally. More importantly, though, it would pull the set down in a way that I don't know if — it would be like a black hole. I don't know if we'd be able to recover from the emotional weight of that song."

Variations

Last Updated: April 10, 2018

Type	Description	First Played	Last Played
Alternative	Stripped Down (Piano/Guitar/Vocals Only)	March 6, 2017	May 16, 2017
Alternative	Half-step down	October 27, 2017	October 27, 2017
Intro	Mike and Brad playing piano and guitar	May 15, 2017	October 27, 2017

Personnel

Linkin Park

• Chester Bennington - Vocals
• Rob Bourdon - Drums
• Brad Delson - Guitar
• Joseph Hahn - Programming
• Phoenix - Bass
• Mike Shinoda - Keyboards, Programming, Vocals

Additional Musicians

• Guitar and piano by Eg White

Production

• Written by Mike Shinoda and Francis White
• Produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson
• Vocal production by Emily Wright
• Music performed by Linkin Park
• Vocals by Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda
• Chester's vocals recorded at The Pool Recording Studio, London, UK
• Mike's vocals recorded at The Warehouse Studio, Vancouver, CA
• Music recorded at Larrabee Studios, North Hollywood, CA and Sphere Studios, North Hollywood, CA
• Engineered by Ethan Mates, Mike Shinoda and Josh Newell
• Assistant engineer: Alejandro Baima
• Studio B assistant engineer: Warren Willis
• Studio drum tech: Jerry Johnson
• Mixed by Manny Marooquin at Larrabee Studios, North Hollywood, CA
• Mix engineer: Chris Galland assisted by Jeff Jackson and Robin Florent

Steve Aoki Chester Forever Remix

• Jeff Blue, Executive Producer
• Don Gilmore, Producer, Engineer
• Brian "Big Bass" Gardner, Engineer, Mastering Engineer
• Andy Wallace, Mixing Engineer
• John Ewing Jr., Engineer, Additional Engineer
• Matt Griffin, Assistant Engineer
• Steve Sisco, Engineer
• Michael "Mike" Shinoda, Engineer
• Steven "Steve" Aoki, Engineer

Lyrics

Album Version

Should have stayed; were these signs, I ignored?
Can I help you not to hurt anymore?
We saw brilliance when the world was asleep
There are things that we can have but can't keep
 
If they say
Who cares if one more light goes out?
In this sky of a million stars
It flickers, flickers
Who cares when someone's time runs out?
If a moment is all we are
Or quicker, quicker
Who cares if one more light goes out?
Well I do
 
The reminders pull the floor from your feet
In the kitchen, one more chair than you need, oh
And you're angry, and you should be, it's not fair
Just 'cause you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there
 
If they say
Who cares if one more light goes out?
In this sky of a million stars
It flickers, flickers
Who cares when someone's time runs out?
If a moment is all we are
Or quicker, quicker
Who cares if one more light goes out?
Well I do

(I do)

Who cares if one more light goes out?
In this sky of a million stars
It flickers, flickers
Who cares when someone's time runs out?
If a moment is all we are
Or quicker, quicker
Who cares if one more light goes out?
Well I do

Gallery

• 

  YouTube background image

• 

  Steve Aoki Chester Forever Remix

• 

  Promo image

• 

  One More Light lyrics signed by the remaining 5 members, sent out by Prizeo in 2018

In Other Media

• "One More Light" is featured in the 15th episode of Season 3 of the TV series A Million Little Things, titled "Not Alone".

External Links

Stream

• One More Light (Official Audio): LPTV
• One More Light (Chester Forever Steve Aoki Remix): LPTV

Music Video

• One More Light (Official Video): LPTV | LP FB | Vevo
• One More Light (Lyric Video): LPTV | Nicola Drilling's YouTube

Live Videos

• One More Light (Jimmy Kimmel Live): Jimmy Kimmel YouTube | Jimmy Kimmel FB

LPTV

• Hard To Listen