Chester saved a life
Back in 2002, a young teenager was raging through his personal battles. A little too afraid to exhibit his true self, to take a stand, to know what’s the right thing to do that will comfort the tiny heart pumping ideas after ideas, emotions after emotions. And just about then, a sudden surge of lyrics gave the wandering youngster a shoulder to lean on:
“Forfeit the game before somebody else
Takes you out of the frame
And puts your name to shame
Cover up your face, you can’t run the race
The pace is too fast, you just won’t last.”
There’s something immersive and positive in even negativity when it comes to Linkin Park, aka LP. Points of Authority was not for the faint-hearted, as it constantly screamed about all possible self-doubts and psychological ventings. When teenagers of my age were thrown into a pit and asked to choose their poison, I think I did it right by choosing the right poison.
I don’t know what pulled me towards LP for the first time ever. I don’t think it was the lyrics instantaneously because I had my own hiccups trying to read and decrypt a whole lot of spats, with my own traditional Indian upbringing. It was a mixed bag of their anime outlook and Japanese influence, coming from Mike Shinoda’s brains, that influenced their album art and music videos; and the way Joe Hahn aka Mr. Hahn used to intervene with the first DJ samples I’ve ever heard in a rock song. No, I didn’t listen to Limp Bizkit before LP.
Anime was definitely a raging, underfed passion that was growing back then, beneath my skin. And LP flavoured it with Mr. Hahn’s statement-making DJ cameos. Take this song for example, Cure For The Itch, it had no real lyrics, it just kept on experimenting with sounds and reverse beats, and made sense to a teenager growing up miles away from the existence of the band, sense as clear as the daylight.
Hybrid Theory was internationally released back in 2000, and it took 4 years to come to India and make its mark amongst the lost youth like me, thanks to TV channels playing international music back then. In fact, the Mr. Hahn sample from Cure For The Itch was used as a theme track for one of the popular shows back then, called Rewind on Channel [V]. The one song that made the most talking to a mindless youth like me was Crawling.
Crawling was a bizarre music video to watch in front of the older folks. I remember changing the channel, as a 15-year-old kid, every time some elderly walked past the room. Crawling openly challenges sexually offended youngsters, who have been either living with their offenders or know someone who has been taking a toll on their minds and skin constantly. The band starts talking about wounds that will never heal, and that’s where it started drawing my attention.
For the common lot, LP was just noise and funky hair and rebelling against the normal side of life. However, digging deeper, LP and Chester started making sense to me and my kind, and in the most cryptic way possible. It was a special, Morse Code for the band and its fans. So, when you start listening to Crawling even after 21 years, to a slowed-down piano version emerging 17 years since the creation of the original, it still makes the same point. With a touch of Chester’s own plight in life of course, when you start realising his own tragedy engraved in every LP lyrics. So, here’s an amazing Crawling version from one of my favourite LP concerts ever, One More Light. Surrounded by a thousand hardcore fans, he barely missed a tune.
I still remember July 21, 2017, cold, damp winds blowing throughout Mumbai, as I made my way to work, in a black and yellow taxi, reading about the tragedy that has struck most of us, still living our teenage dreams in 50 minutes of a Linkin Park album. It was only a few weeks back, that I was criticising Linkin Park for having fallen from the anger infused Somewhere I Belong to a very commercial, sappy rendition in One More Light.
When the news hit me, that the man who inspired us to face our demons, helped us scream on top of our lungs has taken his very own life, it started making me feel very uncomfortable. Not just because one of the foundation pillars of my childhood had fallen, but that we were all just naive enough to not realise what this man went through, while he kept penning and singing paragraphs, heavy and laden with pain and anger.
I never dug deep into individual song titles or lyrics much, because each one was supposed to be taken as a piece of personal opinion and entertainment, but Chester’s pain started unfolding through a bunch of his song titles, Numb, Leave Out All the Rest, Iridescent, One More Light, Heavy and In The End, to name a few. I haven’t met this man, nor did he know of my existence, but at that moment, I wished I met him and told him how he saved my life so that I could save his.
Even the most adrenaline exhilarating songs started pointing me towards another direction. A very strange dance-rock collaboration with DJ Steve Aoki called Light that Never Comes started speaking volumes about the same theory.
“When the floodgates open, brace your shores
That pressure don’t care, it breaks your doors
Say it’s all you can take, better take some more.”
I cannot draw a more conclusive example of how an artist painted his sorrows with exciting colours and concealed the finer anecdotes with a bigger chunk of a fighter-eque lyrics and rhythm. As we danced our nights away to someone’s pain and sorrow.
When Chester chose the 20th of July 2017, it was also Chris Cornell’s 53rd birthday. The legendary rock artist took his own life two months back, right after an exhilarating concert with his band Soundgarden. I personally try to refrain from fear-mongering myself to sleep with illusions of my rock gods playing their swan songs in my half-sleep state, but July 20th was no coincidence. The whole world knew how the two rockstars were connected to each other, with rock journals often calling them brothers from other mothers. In fact, Chester was Chris’ son’s godfather. When LP was performing One More Light on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, to promote their new album, Chester couldn’t finish the song that he dedicated to his lost brother, Chris.
Whatever the reasons were, they were beyond inflicting usual pain through songwriting. I, like every individual, have battled some form of depression in the past. Poor performance in academics, pressure from society to choose a job that pays you enough, to be better than ‘rebound’ material when it comes to things of the heart, etc. And guess who saved me most of the time? Chester fuckin’ Bennington and the Linkin Park. There’s not a single ounce of writing in Numb that I don’t resonate with my own hardships. I used to use that song to anger me so that I could channelise my best version.
When you listen to Numb deeply, you’ll realise that the piano notes that form the base of the song (from the band’s 2nd album — Meteora) transpire into the most prominent song from the band’s 3rd album (Minutes to Midnight), called What I’ve Done. In those 4 years of gap for the band, the lyrics got heavier, more mature and it continued its trajectory with a teenager who was now becoming a young adult, about to set foot in a new city, away from family and friends, having altercations with his decisions and indecisions. I haven’t been following the band around or raving about it like a psycho groupie, but the likes of Chester have been saving my soul for yet another day, all through these years.
“Can’t you see that you’re smothering me
Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control?
’Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you”
I was using these very words against the people, especially the ones in my own house, who were trying to push the thought of me graduating from my hometown, against the riches and opportunities that the national capital promised me. As the eldest son, one must be novel, diligent towards their parents. I was quite the opposite, almost like the silent, defiant version of that, who would do things first, then talk about it. I filled the admission forms and then sat my folks down to force me to leave the house. It worked, they realised I’ve become So Numb.
“Put to rest
What you thought of me
While I clean this slate
With the hands of uncertainty
So let mercy come and wash awayWhat I’ve done
I’ll face myself
To cross out what I’ve become”
When I would walk up the corridors of my hostel, already mentally mutilated by a bunch of impolite seniors and your usual suspects in a corrosive academic setup, What I’ve Done would set me free. The song not only gave me the confidence to rinse it off and watch out for another day, but also elevated my survival and fighting spirit to another level. I was living with my decision or indecision. But there was never a moment, wherein I gave up and planned to settle back home. I channelise the same fireball spirit to this day, and those who walk the line with me, know that I go off only once a year. And that blast is usually heavy.
Chester was no father to me, nor any brother or a part of a self-run cult. He was my childhood hero, who lived and died, being an energy ball in my life that goes beyond any synonym of a leader. He defined the Mark Twain saying, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” A five-and-a-half-foot, lean, nerdy guy with cool hair and glasses, who screamed like the demon himself. A beacon of light that was unsteady and jittery, but burnt the brightest, and flinched the least.
When I walk into an institution or organisation, expecting to lead or be led, I often look at my body frame, stutter at first and then let out a big smile, knowing they can push my body around but cannot tamper with my soul. This 9-minute long write-up isn’t about pulling the plug. It is about celebrating what you’re born with and what are you proud of.
Everyone needs to be on top of their lungs, screaming through their thin-framed glasses, spinning like a bozo on his or her own stage, and speaking occasionally with anyone he/she trusts to have a peaceful chat, which can resolve a long-drawn internal conflict. We cannot expect one more light to go out in a sky of a million stars. Nor can we push the inability to process as a human being due to pressing stress under the rug. As humans, before giving up on our bodies, we usually give up on our minds and hearts. And that pain is silent, unheard of and if ever approved of being existent, often considered to be inconsequential. Until it takes over you.
Speaking to people heals people. Writing to people heals people. Or as Chester would, channelise thoughts of your pain and survival instincts into songs and silent prayers, and let it forge a transcendental relationship with someone you don’t know of. I went from being a kid trying to fit into a new region, master a new language to become an adult overnight who lost his parents in quick succession and had to figure life out real quick, as the well-wishers advised me. I had a light at the end of the tunnel called Linkin Park. If music doesn’t speak that well to you as it did to me, try reaching out to a real person and sharing the darkest nightmares, and see if it barters a way to punch through the spoilt wall.
I’ll leave you to make peace with your life and mind, with this song that I thought was the end of my favourite boyhood band. But soon realised was a flight of imagination which was curled very intelligently from its actual intentions upon release. You won Linkin Park, you turned an absolute hater of One More Light to an insane fan.
Rest in Power my heroes Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell. Love and prayers to the families, the band and the fans who shared this journey together.
