Chester Bennington Was More Than “A Part Of My Childhood”

It’s the easiest thing to associate with Linkin Park, given their type of music at the early heights of their popularity. They helped adolescents cope with the pains of their world, gave them an outlet for the angst and the loneliness that one often feels in that messy space between youth and adulthood.
Chester did that, he certainly did. He helped us filter our respective darknesses and turn ’em into art. It was the loud and angry type, but it was art nonetheless. Hybrid Theory and Meteora were perfection for that.
Every little thing you say to me brings me one step closer to the edge.
Told you everything loud and clear, but nobody’s listening.
Don’t turn your back on me, I won’t be ignored.
Yes, Chester did much for our childhood. But if you believe that that was where Chester’s (and LP’s) contribution to lives stopped, you’re sorely mistaken.
You see, the most beautiful thing in my opinion about Linkin Park’s music is often its most overlooked: their evolution.
Speaking as a fan of their earlier works (having watched the music video of In The End a hundred times over on TV) I, too, absorbed their rock as a formative piece of my childhood. Their music was some of the first I had on my iPod Nano, back when those were a thing.
But I grew out of that angsty, grade school shell too, and when I first heard the more level, emotional melody from Leave Out All The Rest from the Minutes to Midnight album circa 2007, a fundamental chord was struck in me. I was in high school, then. The awe that followed can be encapsulated like this:
Their music is changing… and I like it. Because I’m changing too.
From deep alt rock tunes and angry lyrics came a more mellow, yet similarly passionate, collection on the horrors of war, the yearning to break out of a system, things that many other musicians didn’t usually tackle.
When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die.
And the shadow of the day will embrace the world in gray, and the sun will set for you.
With the release of A Thousand Suns in 2010 and Living Things in 2012, something had become very clear to me, as a fan now in college — Linkin Park’s music was deserving of the word ‘genius’. Why? They were doing something different for music, for rock and rap, transmuting political ideations and commentaries about world order into music. And yet, the core elements were still there: passion, longing, heartbreak, and hope. The pain didn’t just come in the form of angst now; there was reflection.
Without it, my world would have been foggier than it is today.
The biggest signal of Chester and LP’s pure evolution can be seen in the lyrics of two of their songs, released almost 10 years apart.
In The End (2001): I tried so hard and got so far, but in the end, it doesn’t even matter.
Waiting For The End (2010): This not the end, this is just the beginning, just a voice like a riot rockin’ every revision.
Chester and co. went from endings as meaningless, to endings as new beginnings.
That’s growth. That’s maturity.
Let’s make no mistakes about it — Chester still sung and screamed tracks that were all about pent-up anger. That much is still clear from Living Things and The Hunting Party.
But undeniably: As the band grew up, so did I, straight into my first few years outside the walls of a classroom. Chester’s voice was a constant; sometimes he begged for understanding, and other times he told me that he understood. Being an LP fan that time meant something. They often called us Street Soldiers.
Now, there’s something to be said about growing up with someone whose art you have patronized for close to fifteen years, almost religiously at some point… and then losing that someone.
When I read the news about Chester’s death, it felt like a sucker punch. I felt the blood drain from my chest until my heart, quite literally, felt like a hollow space. Because more than being a staple of my childhood and adolescence, Chester was a staple of my growth and adulthood, too.
I saw him once, and only once, live in concert, back in 2013. Those memories are now amongst the most incomparable in my treasury. I’ll never see him in concert again, and that’s a painful fact to write.
There are no words to describe the debt I feel to Chester for the emotional education he provided for me. He helped me identify the need to break norms oftentimes, via LP’s tendency to subvert the traditional verse-verse-chorus-verse pattern with their songs. He helped me realize that one can demand so much from music, by rapping about the wretches and kings, rather than about what drink he’s getting at the club.
But most of all, he helped me remember that there is always something beautiful to cling on to, when all feels bleak.
When life leaves us blind, love keeps us kind.
I wish Chester knew how much joy and clarity he brought into my world. I wish he knew how many people he managed to lift up with his voice, that supremely talented voice, which could be both demonic and angelic, depending on what was needed at the given moment.
I wish that somehow, somehow, I could have helped him fight his inner demons, the way he has helped with mine. In the words of his band, “After all, it was the way you sang about those demons that made everyone fall in love with you in the first place.”
It didn’t matter that people knew it was part and parcel of what they were getting; this hurts. This hurts really, really bad. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to fill this gap you’ve left behind.
Because, in times of difficulty whether I was 10 or 26 years old, Chester Bennington was truly one more light.
I won’t forget your words from way back when, sir:
When my time comes, forget the wrong that I’ve done,
Help me leave behind some reason to be missed,
Don’t resent me, and when you’re feeling empty, keep me in your memory,
Leave out all the rest. Leave out all the rest.
Rest in peace, Chester. I’ll miss you, man.
Thank you for everything.
We love you.
Cedric
