[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