The Song Heavy: Lead Single From Linkin Park

The song “Heavy” is the lead single from Linkin Park’s seventh album One More Light. This is their first single featuring a female vocalist. The lead vocalist Chester Bennington is found singing about feeling the emotional weight of the problems that are “stacking up” and “unnecessary”. It is a song that is looked after his suicide on July 20, 2017, to help explain what he was going through. Bennington was battling with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse, which is well depicted in the music video. Most of the time the artist’s song is used to being really intense with all the other songs of his band, but this is totally different. In this song, it feels like the artist wants to feel defeated and contemplated. The song was self-produced by Linkin Park and written by and with pop songwriters Justin Tranter and Julia Michaels, along with the direction of Tim Mattia.

The story behind the writing of this song is that Chester Bennington wanted to write a song about how sometimes people get really weighed down by all their problems, and sometimes, it is difficult to get out of that. In this song, Bennington braves the wounds, dead ends and knotty contradictions of his own mind. The artist speaks of paranoia, self-centeredness and they want to break free while knowing the damned absurdity of it all. Bennington is making his last cry for help through this song. The audience is anyone who is suffering from similar issues and Bennington is telling them to hold on – just as he is doing at the moment – and also anyone who could put him out of his misery. The chorus “I’m holding on..” when the artist sings emerges from a small and vulnerable place of lyrics and performance. The genre is Contemporary R&B, which is the best way to get the audience involved in his feelings and struggles. The artist is effective in persuading the audience. The video features Chester Bennington in a grey, colorless environment playing a man battling addiction. He attends a group therapy session, which quickly turns violent.

With the focus on Bennington, the inner conflict is seen to unfold in a violent manner as he becomes fiercely engaged in the meeting. Back at home, the singer sits at a table surrounded by liquor bottles while he deals with the inner struggles that play out across scenes, where another version of Bennington’s demons is literally coming to life. The demons chastise the sitting incarnation and the two physically clash. All these scenes make it easier for the audience to understand what mental struggles feel like and how someone who is able to can help him out of his situation. Bennington also exhibits self-awareness as he talks about the results of his mental struggles, which in turn encourages the audience to be open about their struggles in life. The optimism that is set in this record is that “I keep dragging around what’s bringing me down/ If I just let go I would be set free”; the struggles pull him down but the help the artist or anyone with mental struggles need is out there, he/she just has to figure it out. A few lyrics later in the song, it reveals that the song is about ego;(“I know I’m not the center of the universe”).

The thing that gets caught up is the person’s self-projected image, an appeal to the audience to look inwards for the solutions to their struggles. This part of the song reveals that a person is addicted to one’s image and he cannot let go of that and this paints a better picture for the audience to be relatable to the artist’s situations. In the context of the anger and alienation presented on many of the band’s earlier albums and songs, the glass may be half full here. It is true that the artist is not sure about the what to do with the mental baggage he has been carrying around, but there is still a recognition that ultimately schlepping his burdens everywhere is not helping him at all, giving the audience a vivid image what people with mental struggles go through. The fact that Linkin Park is sending out messages about mental illness, and reaching out to the people, and letting them know that they are not alone seems like a step in the right direction.