“What I’ve Done” is a song by the American rock band Linkin Park, and the first single from their third studio album, Minutes to Midnight. The song was released as a radio single on April 1, 2007, as a digital download on April 2, and as a CD single on April 30.
Music video:
The music video for “What I’ve Done” explores the many ironies of humanity and its ill effects on the earth and the environment. It juxtaposes various pieces of footage: a large, well-fed man eating fast food, a woman measuring her waist and a man who is so malnourished that his ribcage is visible through his skin; African Americans being hosed down and the Ku Klux Klan; nuclear explosions, the World Trade Center towers collapsing, children waving American flags, a Middle Eastern child holding an AK-47, clips of oil tankers torn in half and birds covered in an oil slick. The band’s turntablist Joe Hahn directed the video for the single, which was shot in the California desert.[4] The video premiered on April 2, 2007 on MTV and Fuse. It premiered on MTV-Asia, MTV-Germany, TMF Netherlands and Canada’s MuchMusic on April 3, 2007.
It features footage of the band performing in the desert, interspersed with stock footage reflecting on a variety of social and environmental issues including pollution, global warming, racism, Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, abortion, starvation, terrorism, warfare, deforestation, poverty, drug addiction, obesity, destruction, rising gasoline prices and crimes committed by humanity. The video also features short views of important historical figures, such as Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Robert Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, and Mahatma Gandhi. Some cut scenes like the traffic scene and the napalm exploding were also featured on the Rise Against music video for Ready To Fall.
The video clip was featured and won on MTV’s Battle of the Videos against videos by Evanescence (“Sweet Sacrifice”) and Lil’ Mama (“Lip Gloss”). The video also marks the first appearance of a Linkin Park video in the #1 spot on MTV’s TRL, hitting #1 six times so far. The video was among the all-time top 50 most viewed on YouTube with over 36 million views but was removed as a result of Warner Music Group’s feud with YouTube. AOL currently has a live performance of “What I’ve Done” on their website.
When the band’s logo is shown for the first time in the video (on the front of Rob’s bass drum), it features a complete circle with the stylized letters “LP” within it. However, every time the logo is shown after this, the circle is not complete, being “separated” by two blank spaces above the “L” and below the “P”. This is explained in “Making of What I’ve Done”, where the band shows the original drums that were wrongly made, and that they had to use black tape to make the breaks in the circle.
So far, this is the only video in which Joe Hahn’s face is not focused at although some parts shown his hands on the turntables.
Chester’s jacket was lent to him by Yellowcard frontman Ryan Key as mentioned in an episode (Episode 89) of MTV Cribs.
What I’ve Done – Lyrics
In this farewell
There’s no blood
There’s no alibi
‘Cause I’ve drawn regret
From the truth
Of a thousand lies
[Pre-Chorus:]
So let mercy come
And wash away
What I’ve done
[Chorus:]
I’ll face myself
To cross out what i’ve become
Erase myself
And let go of what i’ve done
Put to rest
What you thought of me
While I clean this slate
With the hands of uncertainty
[Pre-Chorus]
[Chorus]
For what I’ve done
I start again
And whatever pain may come
Today this ends
I’m forgiving what I’ve done!!!
[Chorus]
What I’ve done
Forgiving what I’ve done
