When the drums kick in I always have to bounce my head with it. This song on good speakers = 8==========<3
it will be a criminal action if this won't be a SINGLE ....! maybe my favourite song from the album......! I ll say it again ... the best of the best from this album is the start and the end .... LOST IN THE ECHO****POWERLESS
What does Powerless mean to YOU? I think this song's lyrics have one of the more straightforward meanings on Living Things, but it's still a powerful song. Long story short, I feel that this song is about being a friend of someone who had relapsed into an addiction and died from it - most likely drugs. If you want to understand why I feel this way, though, then here's how I interpret the lyrics: "You hid your skeletons, when I had shown you mine" The friend of the addict felt betrayed because he had come clean to him about his own problems and tried to fix them (Perhaps he had been suffering from a drug addition as well and wanted to quit), yet the addict refused to come clean himself, let alone change his ways. "you woke the devil that I thought you'd left behind" This, to me, seems to suggest that the addict may have been clean at one point but eventually had a relapse, unbeknownst to the friend. "I saw the evidence, the crimson soaking through" Eventually, the friend realized that the addict had reverted back to his old ways and was trying to hide it. "ten thousand promises, ten thousand ways to lose..." Perhaps that when he was found out, the addict tried to make a bunch of promises to his friend that he'd stop, that he could control his addiction, but the friend knew better, for he realized those promises were empty and that the addict was only sorry for being caught. "And you held It all but you were careless to let it fall" Again, I feel that at one point, the addict had washed the slate clean and had the chance to move on, but, due to his carelessness, he let himself relapse. "you held it all and I was by your side Powerless" This seems to suggest that the friend of the addict tried to help him but soon came to realize that there was nothing he could say or do but stand by him as his addiction slowly took its toll. "I watched you fall apart and chased you to the end" At this point, the friend is desperate. In the back of his mind, he knows that there's nothing he can do, yet he continues to try to help the addict anyway, as he can't just sit idly by as he "falls apart," as it were. I feel that soon after this, the addict died, even though the friend did the best he could to try to stop it, figuratively chasing him "to the end," the "end" being the end of the addict's life. "I'm left with emptiness that words can not defend" At this point, the friend has gone into a depression because of the end result of the addict's addiction. He probably feels so betrayed, so helpless, that he can't even find the words to describe how empty he feels inside. "you'll never know what I became because of you" This is the main line that led me to believe that the addict had died, as since he is dead, he'll never know what he put his friend through, how much he scarred him. He'll never know the kind of person his friend had become because of his poor decisions. "Powerless! Powerless! Powerless!" Yelling "Powerless!" over and over again summarizes and emphasizes basically how the friend felt during the whole ordeal: Powerless. Despite all of his efforts, despite how much he may have cared for the addict, he knew that deep down, there was absolutely nothing he could do, that even though he DID try to help in every way possible, his efforts were fruitless and left him feeling powerless to change the end result. ___________________ Before I really thought about the lyrics, this song was a good closer to me but felt lacking. After really pondering over and realizing what I thought was the meaning of the song, though, I was left moved by the sheer anguish of it all. What makes it even more powerful is that this has been the situation for thousands upon thousands of people, and though I've thankfully never had to experience something so emotionally scarring, it still leaves me saddened that this actually happens to many people to this very day. So, I'm interested in how you guys would interpret the lyrics to this song. In addition, does anyone have an experience similar to the one the song played out? Of course, you don't have to share something like that if you don't want to, but it'd be interesting to hear if you'd be willing to speak out.
to me it feels like my first love... she had it all... but she was careless to fell it all... and i was by her side..... (i could'nt do anything to prevent her to let it all fall...) POWERLESS 10.000 promises ... she gave.... so to me ...it was ... 10.000 ways to lose...
Powerless is just beautiful. The instrumental work is magnificent and the build-up is really exciting. On my first listen I didn't expect the song to get that energetic at the end, but I loved every second of it. I'd almost go as far as to say that Tinfoil compliments it more than any of the interludes for the songs on A Thousand Suns.
What I think I like the most about this song. Going back to the addict who relapsed, is I was once the guy who did relapse. Looking back..,I can see how this would gel all those who tried to stop the coke.
Such an amazing song and what a way to close the album. I know I should listen to the whole album but I keep going back to Powerless each and every time for some reason, it's so haunting and hypnotic.
The interludes are not intros to a song. Tinfoil was the intro to Powerless, it's just chopped up and made a separate entity.
Well yeah I know they aren't legit intros to the songs on A Thousand Suns, but the way Fallout flows into The Catalyst or Jornada Del Muerto flows into Waiting for the End makes it feel like an extended intro. Take Fallout and throw it in front of any other song: it's not gonna work. Anyways I've been thinking the last few days how Chester sings the last chorus. To me, I think it would have been chilling to have him scream the last Powerless before the outro. While the way he sings the word is very different from anything he's done before, I think the scream would have been even more interesting and moving. He keeps composed the entire time in a very emotional song; I think he should let it out at the end. Plus there's never been a Linkin Park ballad with a scream in it. In Pieces was close with the raspy parts, but not a full-out roar.
The album leaked the day after my g/f broke up with me the day before LT leaked. So yeah...I love Powerless. It still nearly brings me to tears at times.
wow , your interpretation really impressed me! Even if you never went through this situation, it seems you did, you 're very empathetic!
Yeah, no, thankfully, I've never had to go through something like that. Thanks for taking the time to read it, though.