Breaking the Habit (song) composer Mike Shinoda
Background
"Breaking the Habit" features a strong electronica-influenced opening, live strings, and guitar. It is an exception from their previous nu metal/rap rock performances as no distorted guitar riffs are included nor are there any rapping vocals from Mike Shinoda, a style they would further explore on their later albums.
A common misconception about the song is that it was written by lead singer Chester Bennington due to his struggles with substance abuse. Band member Mike Shinoda began composing the song before he met Bennington.
In the album notes, it was said that the song was originally going to be an instrumental track lasting a little over three and a half minutes, but Shinoda was convinced by the band to change it. Shinoda decided to write lyrics trying to use his own words to serve as an alert to Bennington's addiction. The instrumental was later released on the Underground 9.0 Fan Club as a demo track titled "Drawing".
Shinoda had a lyrical idea of an emotion he had been trying to express for 5 to 6 years before the production of Meteora. To him, the lyrics had sounded wrong until listening to the "Drawing" demo one night and they fell together. He showed the lyrics he wrote to Bennington, who read them and teared up, relating to the words to a point where he had difficulty performing the song live for almost a year after the release of Meteora; the band would eventually perform it live for the first time at the 2003 Smokeout Festival.
An original 2002 demo of this song with different lyrics and Shinoda on lead vocals appears on LP Underground XIV.
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