| "Figure.09" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Song by Linkin Park | |
| from the album Meteora | |
| Working title: | Figure.09 / Plaster II / Plaster 2 |
| Recorded: | 2002 |
| Length: | 03:17 |
| Time signature: | 4/4 |
| Tempo: | 98 |
| Key: | C# Minor |
| Live debut: | July 4, 2003 |
| Last performed: | September 11, 2004 |
| Writer: | Linkin Park |
| Producer: | Don Gilmore, Linkin Park |
| Label: | Warner Bros. |
| Meteora tracklist | |
"Figure.09" is the eighth track on Linkin Park's sophomore album Meteora. The song is mainly known by Linkin Park fans for its powerful live performances during the Meteora touring cycle, especially its extended outro featured in 2004.
Background
In March 2003, Mike Shinoda did a track-by-track of Meteora for ShoutWeb. About "Figure.09", he said, ""Figure .09" is another song that will be a lot of fun to play live. It's a really loud song. The first sound you hear sounds like little conga drums or something. It's actually Joe tapping on his turntables with a distortion pedal. So the distortion creates this drum type sound when he hits his needle and his vinyl. So he made this little beat just tapping on his records, which is really interesting. I think it's stuff like that that shows where Joe's going. He's doing some really creative things with his turntables. He's not limiting himself to just scratching and rubbing them back and forth and playing samples. He did some interesting stuff."[1][2]
On the Meteora booklet, the band wrote, "This song originally had rapping in the verses, then was rewritten with singing verses during the process at NRG, the singing parts remained until the recording was finished. Then, while mixing the album, Brad, Mike, Chester and Don swapped the rap verses back in, deciding that the rapping made the song more interesting. the rest of the band didn't hear the final version of the song until the album was complete."[3]
The band says the title as "Figure Nine", as evidenced by how they introduced it live in 2003 and 2004.[4]
Demos
An early demo version of "Figure.09" with different lyrics and no vocals during the verses was released on the LP Underground 9.0: Demos CD on November 23, 2009. The bridge of this version reuses the kids voices from Mike's original demo of "Marco Polo" by Styles Of Beyond, but the sample is a little longer and played backwards.
Another demo version of "Figure.09" with alternative rap verses can be heard during The Making Of Meteora and the LPTV episode "The Studio II".[5] When questioned why the lyrics were changed, Mike said, "I don't know why. If you're asking why we've changed the words to that track, the reason is always that we thought the new word, like we tried to beat and if we chose this new version is because we thought that the new version is better as a group."[6]
When asked about the song's title in October 2020, Mike said, "That is a demo title. You know how this song is called "Stinky Machine"? That's the same idea. I called the demo "Figure.09" and we couldn't think of a better name. Like, "let's call it this or that", nothing beat "Figure.09." "Figure.09" was cooler and weirder. Same with "Faint", by the way. Especially at that time, we were playing around with doing more abstract names or random weird names. "Figure.09" was something I was just looking at in a book. Do you know what I mean? You'll see that a lot in art books, like, the words reference certain images. It was literally just something I just saw when I was making the song, it was in something that I was looking at. It was just in the room."[7]
In April 2023, Linkin Park released a second demo of "Figure.09" on Meteora 20 with the name "Plaster 2." This title references the "One Step Closer" demo name of "Plaster", referring to the intro riff in the song. However, on the Meteora song board from NRG Studios, photos of two separate demos titled "Figure.09" and "Plaster II" are shown, which may indicate Linkin Park combined these demos to result in the final "Figure.09." This hypothesis might explain why the first "Figure.09" demo released from 2009 does not have the intro riff that the band likely called "Plaster II."
Brad Delson did a track-by-track commentary of the Lost Demos disc for the "Super Deluxe Box Set" book. About "Plaster 2", he wrote, "Yes. Don't remember "Plaster 1," and know there is no way it holds a candle to "Plaster 2." Hahahaha. This should be called "Figure.08" Oh, this bridge is coming! This song definitely echoes the bounce of "One Step Closer." Love the bookend outro."[8]
Versions
Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.
Studio
| Title | Album | Length | Recorded | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Figure.09 | Meteora | 3:17 | 2002 | March 25, 2003 | |
| Figure.09 (Demo 2002) | LP Underground 9.0: Demos
Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) |
3:23 | 2002 | November 23, 2009 |
|
| Plaster 2 (Figure.09 Demo) | Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) | 2:57 | 2002 | April 7, 2023 |
|
| Figure.09 | Meteora - Instrumentals | 3:14 | 2002 |
|
Live
| Title | Album | Length | Recorded | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Figure.09 | LP Underground 3.0 | 3:48 | August 02, 2003 | November 17, 2003 |
|
| Figure.09 | Live In Texas | August 02, 2003 | November 18, 2003 |
| |
| Figure 9 - Projekt Revolution Tour 2004 | LP Underground 4.0 | 3:13 | August 13, 2004 | November 22, 2004 |
|
| Figure.09 (Live In Texas) | Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) | 3:51 | August 02, 2003 | April 7, 2023 |
|
| Figure.09 | Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) | 5:32 | July 12, 2003 | April 7, 2023 |
|
| Figure.09 | Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) | 3:50 | October 29, 2003 | April 7, 2023 |
|
| Figure.09 | Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) | 4:48 | August 30, 2004 | April 7, 2023 |
|
Live
The first confirmed performance of "Figure.09" was at the first show of the Summer Sanitarium tour, though it is likely it was performed at the warm-up show directly before. "Figure.09" was played throughout the rest of this tour, the 2003 European Tour, and the 2003 Australia and Asia tour after "From The Inside" before it was dropped starting with the Smoke Out performance. The song returned at the first show of Projekt Revolution 2004, and was played through the end of 2004. "Figure.09" was played after "Somewhere I Belong", and featured a new, transition outro that led into "From The Inside". The most common lyrics that Chester screamed on that outro were "blood, anger, suffering / love, hate, fear."
After the Meteora cycle ended, "Figure.09" was dropped and hasn't been played since.
Variations
Last Updated: October 12, 2015
| Type | Description | First Played | Last Played |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outro | Blood, Anger, Suffering Outro Transition | July 23, 2004 | September 11, 2004 |
Personnel
Linkin Park
- Chester Bennington: vocals
- Rob Bourdon: drums
- Brad Delson: guitar
- Joseph Hahn: records, sampling
- Phoenix: bass
- Mike Shinoda: emcee, vocals, sampling
Production
- Don Gilmore: producer
- Andy Wallace: mixer
Lyrics
Nothing ever stops all these thoughts
And the pain attached to them
Sometimes I wonder why this is happening
It's like nothing I can do will distract me when
I think of how I shot myself in the back again
‘Cause from the infinite words I could say / I
Put all the pain you gave to me on display / but didn't
Realize / instead of setting it free / I
Took what I hated and made it a part of me
It never goes away
It never goes away
And now
You've become a part of me
You'll always be right here
You've become a part of me
You'll always be my fear
I can't separate myself from what I've done
Giving up a part of me
I've let myself become you
Hearing your name / The memories come back again
I remember when it started happening
I'd see you in every thought I had and then
The thoughts slowly found words attached to them
And I knew as they escaped away I was
Committing myself to them / And every day I
Regret saying those things / 'cause now I see / that I
Took what I hated and made it a part of me
It never goes away
It never goes away
And now
You've become a part of me
You'll always be right here
You've become a part of me
You'll always be my fear
I can't separate myself from what I've done
Giving up a part of me
I've let myself become you
It never goes away
It never goes away
It never goes away
It never goes away
Get away from
Me
Gimme my space back / You gotta just
Go
Everything comes down to memories of
You
I've kept it in but now I'm letting you
Know
I've let you go
So, get away from
Me
Gimme my space back / You gotta just
Go
Everything comes down to memories of
You
I've kept it in but now I'm letting you
Know
I've let you go
And now
You've become a part of me
You'll always be right here
You've become a part of me
You'll always be my fear
I can't separate myself from what I've done
Giving up a part of me
I've let myself become you
I've let myself become you
I've let myself become lost inside these
Thoughts of you
Giving up a part of me
I've let myself become you
All these things I could not say,
Made me so much more afraid.
Just too scared of what I'd find,
to look behind, to look behind.
All these things I could not say,
made me so much more afraid.
Just too scared of what I'd find,
to look behind, to look behind.
If you go, there's no turning back.
If you go, there's no turning back.
If you go, there's no turning back.
there's no turning back!
No, no, no, no, no, no...
NOOOOO!
NO TURNING BACK!
NOOOOO!
NO TURNING BACK!
NOOOOO!
NO TURNING BACK!
NOOOOO!
NO TURNING BACK!
All these things I could not say,
made me so much more afraid.
Just too scared of what I'd find,
to look behind.
All of these things I could not say,
made me so much more afraid.
Just too scared of what I'd find,
to look behind, CAN'T LOOK BEHIND!
The light kicks in and the night begins
Goes back to the way that it was before
I give everything that I can give in
But still you look at me like I owe you more
So I take what's mine, 'til it all is gone
Thinking of all the ways that you do me wrong
And as the lights stay out and the night goes on
I force things to fit where they don't belong
Even in the times when I backed away
I still found everything coming back to you
But I never believed all the things that you say
Until I found out that I was saying them too
So I tried to undo what I thought was gone
Trying to take it back how I did you wrong
And as the lights stay out and the night goes on
I pretend that I fit where I don't belong
In Other Media
- "Figure.09" is featured in the 2003 film S.W.A.T..
External Links
References
- ↑ Shoutweb.com - Features - Linkin Park "Meteora" Track-by-Track, March 2003
- ↑ Linkin Park Meteora Song Info, March 2003
- ↑ Linkin Park Meteora Song Info
- ↑ YouTube: Linkin Park - Figure.09 (Toronto, Summer Sanitarium 2003), April 8, 2016
- ↑ Linkin Park LPTV Temp.1 Ep. 4 - The Studio II - YouTube, 2011
- ↑ Writing a song live and giving away plugins by GetGoodDrums - YouTube, May 13, 2020
- ↑ Twitch: Mike Shinoda - 10.21 Using my homemade Kontakt drum patch, September 22, 2020
- ↑ Brads notes on the Lost demos : r/LinkinPark, April 15, 2023