Make It Up As I Go
by Mike Shinoda (featuring K.Flay)

Album: Post Traumatic (2018)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This was originally written during the sessions for Linkin Park's 2017 album, One More Light, but it didn't make the cut. The track was initially a ballad but Shinoda tweaked the tempo and recruited hip-hop artist K.Flay to help him complete the track. Shinoda told Kerrang:

    "We wrote this at the end of One More Light, but it wasn't quite right. Months later, I came back to it and we wrote everything other than the chorus. K Flay is incredible-she's so smart, confident, an incredible writer, and a great performer."
  • The song finds Shinoda and K-Flay trying to make their way through life but being thrown off course by adversity.

    I keep on running backwards
    I keep on losing faith
    I thought I had the answers
    I thought I knew the way


    "We were talking about how it's comforting to think that anybody knows what they're doing but we're all inventing life moment by moment," K.Flay told Rolling Stone. "That's a headspace I'm in frequently, and I think it was definitely connecting with Mike's headspace, too."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Carol Kaye

Carol KayeSongwriter Interviews

A top session musician, Carol played on hundreds of hits by The Beach Boys, The Monkees, Frank Sinatra and many others.

Corey Hart

Corey HartSongwriter Interviews

The Canadian superstar talks about his sudden rise to fame, and tells the stories behind his hits "Sunglasses At Night," "Boy In The Box" and "Never Surrender."

Lita Ford

Lita FordSongwriter Interviews

Lita talks about how they wrote songs in The Runaways, and how she feels about her biggest hit being written by somebody else.

Rosanne Cash

Rosanne CashSongwriter Interviews

Rosanne talks about the journey that inspired her songs on her album The River & the Thread, including a stop at the Tallahatchie Bridge.

Kevin Godley

Kevin GodleySongwriter Interviews

Kevin Godley talks about directing classic videos for The Police, U2 and Duran Duran, and discusses song and videos he made with 10cc and Godley & Creme.

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie Combination

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie CombinationSong Writing

In 1986, a Stephen King novella was made into a movie, with a classic song serving as title, soundtrack and tone.