NaBloPoMo | Music and Me… #27 – Leave Out All The Rest, by Linkin Park

Written as part of NaBloPoMo Day 27.

#27 – Leave Out All The Rest

I don’t remember how I came across the music of Linkin Park, but I’m indebted to that unknown source who introduced me to this band. I remember listening to the songs when I was in college and putting part of the lyrics in my chat status. One of my friends had told me they seemed negative and sad, and that it didn’t reflect the happy person she knew me to be. I don’t feel that they are negative or sad, but some of the songs’ lyrics are very real to me. This song was part of an album which released during my college days, back in 2007. I had a classmate, who was a big fan of the band too, and I remember talking with him about it, and how we both loved the song a lot.

“Leave Out All The Rest” speaks to me about legacy. What I do will leave a mark that will be felt even after I’m gone from this world. Everyone wants to be remembered, but no one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. It is painful to imagine that we’d be remembered for a mistake even when there are good reasons to remember. I love the lyrics of this song which expresses a desire to leave some reasons to be remembered, to be missed after I’m gone from this world. It asks not to look at the mistakes and judge based on that.

The part of the lyrics I love the most?

I’m strong on the surface
Not all the way through
I’ve never been perfect
But neither have you

I relate to that. At times, people just beat on me, on an imperfect moment and continue to invoke the past. That one moment hasn’t defined me. It’s not a reflection of the person I was then, or have become after that. I wish people would leave the past be the past, and not take it as the yardstick of measuring the goodness in me.

(© Vinay Leo R. @ I Rhyme Without Reason, 27^th Nov, 2016)

Vinay Leo R.

Poetry & writing to me are to me, a breath of fresh air in a life that is sometimes covered by the smoke of sorrow or self doubt. They also become the sweets I share to celebrate when life offers me a reason to. But most of all, they are to me, my life. For each word I write is a piece of my heart, a thought that just had to find its way into the world.