With You "With You" is the third track on Hybrid Theory, following on the tails of the singles "Papercut" and "One Step Closer." As the album’s only outside collaboration—crafted with the Dust Brothers—it exemplifies Linkin Park's blend of raw rock and metal energy with electronic influences and sampling technology. "With You" originated sometime in late 1999, when Jeff Blue reached out to Mike Simpson of the Los Angeles production duo Dust Brothers, with whom Linkin Park collaborated on the track. The two producers are credited as additional writers for the song. The band has said "With You" was a song that came together very quickly and took little time to reach its final form. The first demo known to fans is featured on a six-track demo from the Hybrid Theory recording sessions. This version is entitled "Dust Brothers," and sounds very similar to the final studio master, with some alternate takes, especially in the verses, and only some of the turntable scratching parts found on the final version. This demo also repeats the bridge vocals throughout the final chorus, unlike the Hybrid Theory album version. "With You" is built around a strong electronic backbone, and many of these elements came directly from the Dust Brothers. The production duo, made up of E.Z. Mike (Mike Simpson) and King Gizmo (John King), rose to prominence in the late 1980s and the 1990s, particularly with their work on the 1989 Beastie Boys album Paul's Boutique, the 1996 Beck album Odelay, and the score of the 1999 David Fincher film Fight Club. Sometime around winter 1997/1998, Jeff Blue, still with Zomba Publishing at the time and working as Xero's talent development, reached out to Mike Simpson for feedback, sending him a copy of the band's demos. Simpson's stepfather was college roommates with Blue, and the two were well-acquainted. Mike Simpson was largely unimpressed with Xero's material, but interested in Jeff Blue's passion for the band. In 1999, following the band's signing to Warner Bros. Records, Blue again sent Simpson the band's newest material—now as Hybrid Theory—in hopes of landing the Dust Brothers as producers for the band's debut album. Upon hearing the new material, Simpson was captivated, especially with the new dynamic Chester added, and the Dust Brothers invited the band to their studio. Brad and Mike met with the two producers, picking out sounds and samples they liked from an unused remix the Dust Brothers had shelved. The production duo was planning a solo release album through MCA Records, and hoped that Hybrid Theory would help craft a track for their debut album. In return, the Dust Brothers offered to produce or mix a song for Hybrid Theory. Mike Shinoda took the electronic parts lent by the Dust Brothers and crafted a demo with his rapping, which thoroughly impressed the producers. With the positive feedback, Chester and Mike fleshed out a full demo, intended to be released by the Dust Brothers. The full "Dust Brothers" demo was one of two songs Don Gilmore identified as the band's best material when they first entered NRG Studios to record their debut album in March 2000. Buoyed by Gilmore's reaction—a clear sign of the song's potential—Jeff Blue negotiated a deal with the Dust Brothers to allow Hybrid Theory to use the track on their debut. The producers agreed to let Hybrid Theory to release it, as long as the band worked on another song for the Dust Brothers album afterwards. The second collaboration, however, never fully materialized, nor did the Dust Brothers' album debut. As the recording of Hybrid Theory continued, "With You" went through a few name changes: the original demo title of "Dust Brothers" stayed for at least some time during the recording process, evidenced by that title appearing alongside versions of "Plaster" and "Crawling" that featured parts developed further into the recording sessions. At some point, it began to be referred to as "Now I See," from another of the chorus lyrics, which was the title used on the band's unmastered studio finals CD dated to May 7, 2000. The title "With You" materialized sometime during or after mixing and mastering, and was used as the song's title for the MP3 file the band uploaded to their website in June 2000. In terms of musical composition, "With You" puts heavy emphasis on its electronic and synth programming. The track starts with an arpeggiated synth sequence, accompanied by turntable scratching—another prominent element of the track. A low-frequency synth also accents this intro. As Joe's scratches build in intensity, a high-pitched tone sample finally plays to signal the full band entrance. A chugging power chord rhythm enters on the guitars, complemented by scratches and high-pitched, rapid synth programming. The guitars recorded on "With You" are seven-string guitars, and the song is one of only two in the band's studio chronology to use seven-string guitars, the other being "Runaway." The track's guitar work makes frequent use of the low range of the seven-string guitar, especially in the rhythmic opening riff, which uses the open low B note of the seventh string heavily in its power chord progression. Quick, high pitched scratches accent the palm-muted portions of this introductory guitar riff, before opening into a sustained power chord sequence. The synth programming continues into this section, continuing to provide a counterpoint to the heavy, low tonality of the guitars. The opening riff and sustained power chord sequences serve as the foundation for the pre-chorus and chorus sections throughout the song, respectively. With the dense electronic production of "With You," the live drums are arranged to complement the mix without overtaking it or changing the texture. The track is grounded by a sampled drum loop, another element taken from the Dust Brothers. Rob Bourdon's live drum tracks mirror this sampled loop, keeping a tight backbeat groove that doesn't overshadow the sampled percussion. In the verses, "With You" takes a strong atmospheric approach, with strings progressions providing a textured layer for a clean guitar melody played with harmonics, effected to de-emphasize the pick strokes and sound almost keyboard-like. Mike raps over this atmospheric bed, with heavily processed vocals featuring heavy delay, echo, and his signature stuttered vocal backing tracks. Over the pre-chorus and chorus instrumentation introduced in the song's intro, Chester delivers a powerful raspy vocal delivery, leading into the sustained notes of the chorus. As Chester holds out the notes for the song's eponymous lyrics, "With you," a second vocal line responds, with both Chester and Mike rapping the words. Following the second chorus and a vocable growl by Chester, "With You" strips back to its electronic layers, as Joe Hahn performs a scratch break over the looped electronic and sample elements of the song. This leads into the full bridge, as Chester sings "No matter how far we've come / I can't wait to see tomorrow," over the chorus instrumentation. The song returns to its chorus, now additionally backed up by Chester adding sustained, low backing vocals singing "You" on root notes. At the close of the final chorus, the looped electronic elements remain as all other instrumentation drops out, fading out to end the track. The lyrics of "With You" explore themes of relational conflict and emotional distance, while also creating a clear dichotomy between Mike's verses and the Chester-dominated choruses and bridge. Mike's verses paint strong yet cold imagery—implying detachment and emotional numbness right from the opening line "I woke up in a dream today." The reverb, delay, and glitching effects on his vocals also help to underscore the sense of disconnection the song touches on. In contrast, Chester's vocal parts bring a sense of groundedness and emotional connection, particularly through the recurring title lyric as he sings "I'm with you," as well as the optimistic bridge vocals: "No matter how far we've come / I can't wait to see tomorrow." These elements serve as a counterbalance, offering a glimmer of hope that contrasts with the emotional distance portrayed in the verses. Chester's vocal parts focus heavily on his distorted, gruff singing technique. He noted that along with "Crawling," "With You" was one of the most trying Hybrid Theory songs to perform live, due to the aggression in all his vocal parts. He reinforced this in an LPU chat in 2011, mentioning "'With You" as vocally taxing in the same way "Crawling" was for him: With its dense production falling into place easily, as well as the Dust Brothers' strong feedback, Linkin Park was firmly convinced in the quality of "With You," even more so after Don Gilmore's early approval of the song. This stood in contrast to songs such as "Plaster" or "Stick N Move," which saw constant critique from Gilmore, and required many rewrites. Emboldened by the positive reception to "With You," the band turned to heavy grassroots promotion of the song leading up to the release of Hybrid Theory. The song was featured on the band's website for free download as early as June 2000, just after the band finished the Hybrid Theory sessions and before "One Step Closer" was sent to radio. The song was additionally featured on several CD and cassette samplers distributed to the band's early street team. As such, "With You" played a large part in the promotion of Hybrid Theory, and was also featured on industry samplers such as a Warner Bros./Reprise Records sampler for Ozzfest 2000 and a rock/metal industry sampler compiled by British rock and metal magazine Kerrang! (Incoming: The Sounds of 2001) in November 2000. In an interview with Dynamic Rock, Mike also mentioned how they felt confident in "With You," fueling their decision to distribute it for free: "With You" was also one of the in-house remixes done by members of the band for Reanimation in 2002. Joe Hahn, credited as "Chairman Hahn," took the helm for the remix, entitled "Wth>You." The reimagined track features much of the original sample work used on the Hybrid Theory version, while using newly-recorded guitar by Mike and some new vocal takes. The remix shifts the ambient verses to a more electronic feel, introducing a new strings progression and synth elements. Starting with the bridge, the remix also introduces a piano melody which prominently features throughout the latter half of the track. One other notable new addition is Chester screaming "Come on!" to start the track—this was a trend that started in the band's live performances as early as August 2000, possibly even before. This opening vocal became so closely tied with the song that it was recorded to be featured on the Reanimation version. Additionally, "Wth>You" features rapper Aceyalone in the bridge of the song, with his verse lines interspersed between scratches of Chester's vocals from the bridge of "With You." Aceyalone was chosen specifically by Joe due to his interest in the rapper's work, both as a solo rapper and as part of the Freestyle Fellowship. In 2020, reflecting on the remix for Hybrid Theory's 20th anniversary, Joe mentioned his admiration for Aceyalone and the way the rapper helped evolve the West Coast hip-hop scene. Though "With You" did not see any special attention upon the release of Hybrid Theory's 20th anniversary edition in 2020, it was later revealed that a remix of the song had been created by instrumental progressive metal outfit Polyphia, and that the track was fully mixed and mastered. The "With You" remix was to have been part of a larger remix project for the album anniversary, according to Polyphia guitarist Tim Henson. Henson also mentioned that hip-hop collective Brockhampton was involved in the project, and implied that there were many of these remixes planned but ultimately cancelled. Polyphia's "With You" remix, and any other Hybrid Theory remixes, were shelved, save for the 100 gecs remix of "One Step Closer." As Linkin Park began building their early reputation as a live band under the guidance of their manager Rob McDermott, "With You" was a strong staple of their shows, bringing heavy energy to their mid-setlist. The earliest recordings of the band playing the song also feature the "Come on!" intro scream by Chester that was officially recorded for the Reanimation version. The earliest known live recording of the song is from the band's August 18th, 2000, performance in Chester's hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, also featuring the scream. "With You" was performed between fifth and seventh in the band's early sets—Linkin Park's shows were only nine to ten songs long at this point, opening for groups such as Union Underground, Kottonmouth Kings, P.O.D., or Papa Roach. In January 2001, with Hybrid Theory's sales and popularity soaring, the band embarked on their first headlining tour, the Street Soldiers tour. "With You" was moved to the set opener, featuring an extended intro, the first of many to come. This intro featured a drum loop and a melodic strings progression, with Joe performing varying amounts of scratching—sometimes fully soloing and other times lightly scratching as he lined up his record cues. This format, with a drum loop, melodic loop, and Joe's turntable work, became the basis for the many extended intros the band put together for "With You" in their early touring years. The Street Soldiers extended intro was continued into the band's first Europe tour in March 2001, as they performed as opening support for Deftones. Later in the year, while touring for Ozzfest in summer, Linkin Park debuted a new extended intro featuring reinterpreted elements of "My December," and then later shifted to an intro sampling the beginning of the Guns N' Roses song "Welcome to the Jungle." At the band's September 15th show in Manchester, England, a conga and bongo loop intro was used for the first and only time, just before the band introduced a new mellow piano chord-based intro loop at their London Docklands Arena performance the next day. This intro stuck, and was used for the rest of the year. For the band's first Projekt Revolution tour, their only touring of 2002, "With You" remained the opener, with Joe scratching samples from the song over a slow ambient electronic loop crafted for the tour. The next year, with Meteora's touring cycle, "With You" finally lost its opener status, with the band's newest album opener "Don't Stay" largely taking that role. "With You" instead moved toward the end of the main setlist for the Linkin Park Underground tour in March, eventually settling in the mid-setlist by Projekt Revolution 2003. As it was no longer opener, the extended intros were dropped. The band did add elements of the Reanimation version starting with the Linkin Park Underground tour, removing Brad's guitar harmonics and the studio recording's strings and replacing them with the electronic elements and strings progression from the verse of Joe's "Wth>You" remix. "With You" returned as opener for the band's final leg of performances in December 2003, featuring a new extended intro revolving around a distinctive vocal melody. The song continued to open the band's sets even into 2004, where another new extended intro was added, this time featuring a low strings progression alongside a drum loop, leading into the Reanimation strings. When "With You" moved back to a mid-set position in summer 2004, the Reanimation strings progression was kept as an intro. Following the close of the Meteora touring cycle, "With You" saw four more performances during the band's 2006 dates in Japan. During this break from the Minutes to Midnight sessions, Linkin Park performed a show in Tōkyō, then played the mirroring Summer Sonic festival dates in Chiba and Ōsaka, with an additional "After Summer Sonic" date in the northern city of Sendai. "With You" featured an abbreviated version of the long-form 2004 strings intro for these dates. "With You" was not performed for nearly six years following its performance on August 14, 2006, in Sendai, Miyagi. However, at the band's Music for Relief benefit show in May 2012, "With You" made its triumphant return following "Papercut," featuring a new extended intro where Joe scratched over the programmed drum loop from the studio recording. The band would keep "With You" on the setlists in this format throughout the LIVING THINGS touring cycle. In the summer of 2012, the band began moving "With You" to opener position yet again, adding composer Ramin Djawadi's main theme for the HBO series Game of Thrones in the extended intro. "With You" rotated with the "TINFOIL" and "Faint" mashup as opener, using the Game of Thrones intro when opening the set and omitting it when mid-setlist. The song continued into the touring cycle for The Hunting Party in 2014, but was shortened, omitting a chorus and the second verse. "With You" was performed in Act 2, alongside the two other shortened Hybrid Theory tracks, "Papercut" and "Runaway." Later in the year, it began rotating between a full performance early in the set, a shortened vocal-only performance leading into "Until It's Gone," and being dropped entirely in favor of "Points of Authority." Full performances of the song included no extended intros or outros, and proceeded directly after the end of "Given Up," while the shortened version only featured Mike performing the first verse over the transitional drum loop leading into "Until It's Gone." "With You" was dropped entirely following its performance at KROQ-FM's annual Almost Acoustic Christmas in 2014, where it was performed as the vocal intro to "Until It's Gone." Its last full performance was in London, England, in November 2014, being replaced by "From the Inside" as the band's 2015 touring year began. It has yet to be performed live since the band's 2024 return.
With You is probably a top 5 LP song in my opinion. Heavy af riff, awesome bridge vocals, great rapping, interesting electronic elements, and good emotional lyrics. I like that the bridge lyrics add a rare optimistic tone to an album that's largely devoid of positive emotions, while still keeping the raw and emotionally dark tone of the rest of the lryics. I give it an 8.841/10.
With You es definitely my favorite HT song. When I first heard it I didn't really have a strong opinion about it but as the years have passed, every time I heard it I liked it more and more. The verses are some of the best they have ever done, in my opinion.
With You is one of those songs from Hybrid Theory that is almost too good. I can't believe how they pulled it off. Everything clicks together and feels so effortless. Mike's verses are some of my favorite from him. I always admired how he presented a picture and made so many rhymes within one verse: I hit you and you hit me back We fall to the floor, the rest of the day stands still Fine line between this and that When things go wrong I pretend that the past isn't real Now I'm trapped in this memory And I'm left in the wake of the mistake, slow to react So even though you're close to me You're still so distant and I can't bring you back
The 8.841 scoring is becuase I have a ranking of hundreds of songs and divide the scores up to as many decimal points is needed to give each song their own score.