Overflow

"Overflow"
Song by Linkin Park
from the album From Zero
Format:	Digital
Length:	3:31
Writer:	Linkin Park, Jaten Dimsdale, Mike Elizondo, Jake Torrey
Producer:	Mike Shinoda, Colin Brittain, Brad Delson
Label:	Warner Records
From Zero tracklist
From Zero (Intro) The Emptiness Machine Cut The Bridge Heavy Is The Crown Over Each Other Casualty Overflow Two Faced Stained IGYEIH Good Things Go

"Overflow" is the sixth track from Linkin Park's eighth studio album, From Zero.

Background

"Overflow" begins with a droning sound leading into a slow beat that Mike raps over. The drum beat is reminiscent of a slower version of Led Zeppelin's "When The Levee Breaks." Like other songs, there is a back-and-forth vocal delivery between Mike and Emily. It is one of the more experimental songs on the album.

Teddy Swims (Jaten Dimmsdale) collaborated on the song with Linkin Park. Mike said, "He came in for a few writing sessions, and sang some background vocals on the demo. But once Emily really "joined" the band, it seemed more natural to have me & her do all the vocals." Teddy said about his collaboration with the band that it was his first time seeing a real DJ, talking about Joe, finding moments on records and sampling them into the computer. When doing the listening party for the album, Mike said that Teddy is a great guy.

Dave Farrell mentioned the month before the album came out that "Overflow" was one of his favorite songs on the album (the other being "The Emptiness Machine"), saying, "'Overflow' is a different type of song on the record. And it's a type of song I've always really enjoyed when we figured out how to make it work. People will have to hear it to understand what I'm talking about. But it just came out as one of my favorite tracks on the album."

The band went through many different versions and rewrites of the song, Mike claiming, "There's always one song that took the most amount of tries to get to it, and 'Overflow' was the one. We rewrote the track so many times, we rewrote the chorus so many times..." Dave claimed that the song went through three or four different choruses, but was a song that the band didn't want to give up on and kept coming back to, even after working with different writers. Mike added, "we did a chorus at East West [Studios], and Em sang it, and then a day later I was like, 'Ohh, I have a better idea...' Part of the thing about that song was that the original demo we did with a few different friends in the room, and then we came back to it and rewrote it with a different group of people, and then we came back to it a bunch of times after that with just us. And I think that was part of the key, was for us to almost kick everybody out of the room and have the band just focus on it and figure it out. The contribution of the other writers on it was super, super valuable and helped make the song what it is, but I don't think the song would've completely worked unless it still sounded like Linkin Park, and in order to do that, it had to be us."

Mike said, "The end guitar part on Overflow was played by me, with a collab on the effects and sounds by me and Colin." He described the outro of the song with its "really weird guitars" as a "production moment, like cool headphone stuff." He added, "I wanted to find a way to do that at the end of that song that felt new and rewarding, and I feel that we got there!"

Songwriter Jake Torrey wrote the song with Linkin Park. Upon the album's release, he commented, "New @linkinpark album From Zero out now, got to work on Overflow and Good Things Go. Hybrid Theory was the first album I ever owned on cassette and being a part of this album is a crazy full circle experience. Thanks @m_shinoda for giving me the call." Mike replied, "We always love seeing you, Jake. working with you is a bonus"

Additionally, Mike Elizondo has a writing credit on the song as well as on "Heavy Is The Crown." In 2016, Mike Shinoda mentioned that Mike Elizondo was an older bass player for the band, saying, "Mike Elizondo at one point for a very short period of time was the bass player for Linkin Park. Ask him about that story. Phoenix left us for a short time and Elizondo at that time was our top candidate for bass player. We asked him to be "on it"...we were doing it, and he said at a certain point... 'Man I don't know what to do. On one hand, you guys are doing so well and I love the music and on the other hand, Dre wants me to work on this new album with him and he's offering me points on the new record. It's this white kid from Detroit....Eminem.'" Mike Shinoda told him to go work with Eminem and said Elizondo had "great options" in front of him....work with Dre and Eminem or be the bass player in Linkin Park. This is the first time Mike Elizondo had the opportunity to work with the band on an album after that time period.

The end of the song features the sound of a cassette being flipped and a snippet of the Xero song "Fuse" being played for a brief second. "Fuse" is the only Xero song from the primary 4 track Xero demo cassette tape that did not end up getting released on the Hybrid Theory (20th Anniversary Edition) box set in 2020, possibly because of its Disney sample in the beginning of the track.

About the transition at the end of the song, Mike said, "One thing you'll notice on this album is that there isn't any wasted space. All of the transitions from one to another are very snappy and short, and they really, for the most part, just fly right into the next thing with chaotic little... all of the transitional pieces that are not actually in the song are chopped up into bits and gritted out into the song in a way where they almost trip and fall into the next song. The exceptions are going into 'Overflow,' which is in the middle of the record, and going into 'Good Things Go,' which is at the end of the record. Those are the two because you need at those moments, something to almost like hit the ground and stop the pace."

Versions

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

Studio

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Overflow	From Zero	3:31		November 15, 2024

Live

Speaking to press in Asia in September 2024, Emily Armstrong said she wanted to perform "Two Faced," "Casualty," and "Overflow" live, saying "Those three, I think, were the ones we've kinda been talking about... like, really wanting to explore live. I think we're gonna do some rehearsals when we get home and, you know, put it into our live set."

Her sentiment was affirmed in hers and Mike's conversation about From Zero when she was describing new songs she was excited to play. Emily said, "'Over Each Other' is cool, but, like... 'Overflow,' come on! On the album, it's a standout to me, it expands the album in a really cool way, I think it's going to do that live, too."

"Overflow" has not been performed yet by Linkin Park.

Personnel

Linkin Park is

• Mike Shinoda
• Brad Delson
• Dave "Phoenix" Farrell
• Joseph Hahn
• Emily Armstrong
• Colin Brittain

Production

• Written by Linkin Park, Jaten Dimsdale, Mike Elizondo, Jake Torrey
• Produced by Mike Shinoda
• Co-Produced by Brad Delson, Colin Brittain
• Additional Production by Mike Elizondo
• Recording Engineering by Mike Shinoda, Ethan Mates
• Vocals by Mike Shinoda, Emily Armstrong
• Guitar by Brad Delson
• Bass by Dave "Phoenix" Farrell
• Programming by Joseph Hahn
• Drums by Colin Brittain
• Mixed by Neal Avron
• Assistant Engineering by Scott Skrzynski
• Mastered by Emerson Mancini

Lyrics

Album Version

We're all dressed up for a riot
Catching fire fighting fire
I can feel the pressure coming
End the world and push the button (It's all the same to me)

We're going down, we're going down
We're going down, we're going down (It's all the same to me)
We're going down, we're going down
We're going down, we're going down (It's all the same to me)

Turning from a white sky
To a black hole
Turning from the sunlight
To a shadow, oh
I know I can't make it stop
I know I'm out of control
I keep on filling it up
To overflow

Looking up the sky is falling
I can hear the future calling
Ground is shaking as it opens up to pull me in
Fall into oblivion

We're going down, we're going down
We're going down, we're going down (It's all the same to me)
We're going down, we're going down
We're going down, we're going down (It's all the same to me)

Turning from a white sky
To a black hole
Turning from the sunlight
To a shadow, oh
I know I can't make it stop
I know I'm out of control
I keep on filling it up
To overflow
To overflow
To overflow
To overflow
To overflow

Gallery

External Links

References