[Intro: Mike Shinoda]
The dude, he said that, like
When we were making the first Linkin Park record
He was like, "Yeah, you know
I don't know about the rapping, like
I don't know if it's, uh, like—
Maybe you should just be a rock band"
You know what I mean? Like, tryna change us
Like they signed us as an act like what we sound like (Yeah)
And then he's like, "Oh, I don't know
Maybe you should just play keyboard"
[Verse: Mike Shinoda]
Before the first song that you heard me on
There were people already tryna get me gone
Tellin' me to quit rappin', "Just play the keys"
That my band had a singer, they didn't need me
But my band had my back, so we did the tracks
Put out the album and the talk went flat
It was funny at first, but then the humor faded
When some magazines printed that our label made us
We were too good to be true
Some were saying ghostwriters were writin' all that we do
So we had to disprove it, we spelled it out to the detail
How we do it when we're makin' this music
After that I made it a rule
I only do email responses to print interviews
Because these people love to put a twist to your words
To infer that you said somethin' fuckin' absurd
Oh, did I lose you at "infer"?
Not used to hearin' a verse that uses over first-grade vocabulary words? (Haha)
People used to "infer" that we were manufactured
Now I got the interviews on file
Which people said what, which number to dial
So now every enemy screamin' insanity
All they're ever gonna be's another big fan of me, bitch
[Outro: Mike Shinoda]
(Hahahahaha) Can you believe that?
Like it's crazy— it sounds crazy right?
Like at this point, at this point you're thinkin'
Or you-you hear it out, you're like, "That guy was out of his mind"
But, honestly, at that point we—
Besides the fact that he wanted me to just
Play keyboard or whatever, didn't want me to rap
He was like, "Maybe Joe Hahn should, um
Wear a lab coat and a cowboy hat on st—," like when we play (Oh)
I swear to God, he was crazy
Maybe we'll start usin' the cowboy hat (Yeah)
And later on he claimed he wrote our
All our songs, so that was, that was really bad
He was definitely out of his mind