NOTE: I'm not a professional singer so don't judge the vocals. I was kind of pushing the limits on this song by seeing how many instruments can I do for one acoustic song and 5 total instruments came out of it and is honestly one of the most interesting things i've ever done but I hope you like it.

"In The End" is the eighth song from the album Hybrid Theory by Linkin Park. It was released as the fourth and final single from the album on October 9, 2001, and also became one of their most successful. It's popularity as made it one of the most recognizable songs of the decade, in part thanks to the infectious key intro and the flowing tradeoffs between Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington in the verses. It is described by the band as a "pure pop song."

"In The End" was originally called "Untitled", which was a name the band liked, but decided to change after R&B and Neo Soul singer D'Angelo released a single called "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" in early 2000.

A demo version of the song was released on the LP Underground Eleven CD. Mike Shinoda wrote on the booklet: "These were the original verse lyrics that I wrote for this song, and the original melody in the bridge. I remember putting this together in our rehearsal studio on Hollywood and Vine, working overnight in a room with no windows. I had no idea what time of day it was; I just slept when I was tired, and worked on this song until it took shape. The first guy to hear it was Rob, who told me (I'm paraphrasing) that this was "exactly the kind of song he wanted us to write.""

In an interview with the fan site Linkin Park Web, Mike's answer to what's his favorite Linkin Park song was, "I like “Papercut” because it has a lot of energy and generally sums up our style pretty well. I know that Rob (our drummer) likes “In the End” a lot though he says that one day he was thinking how much he wanted a song that was really true about some aspect of life. And then, the very next day, I played him the beginnings of what I wrote on that song, which included the piano and the chorus, and Rob said it was exactly what he had been thinking and he had never even told me he had been thinking it."

However, Chester Bennington revealed to VMusic on August 12, 2012 that he didn't like the song at first: "I don't really participate in picking singles. I learnt that after making Hybrid Theory. I was never a fan of 'In The End' and I didn't even want it to be on the record, honestly. How wrong could I have possibly been? I basically decided at that point I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, so I leave that to other people who are actually talented at somehow picking songs that people are going to like the most. It also gave me a good lesson, as an artist, that I don't necessarily have to only make music, in my band, that I want to listen to. More often than not, something that I like, very few other people like, and something that those people like is something that I kind of like, or don't like at all. And that's cool, it gives me a new appreciation for the songs. But, you know, now I love 'In The End' and I think it's such a great song. I actually see how good of a song it is, it was just hard for me to see it at the time." Now he says "In The End" is a good song that stands the test of time.

Still in the interview to Linkin Park Web, Mike explained how the song came together: "We try not to follow a pattern too much. But I can tell you about a specific song. On “In the End” (since we were talking about it already) I came up with the piano and the chorus music and chorus lyrics. Then Brad came up with the guitar in the verse and we worked on the bassline and composition. From there, I think everybody in the band began chipping in and adding their parts and critiquing each other’s parts. And right before we went into the studio to record it, we scrapped the beat I had originally written for the verse, and had Rob do a new one, which is the one that we recorded."

In October 2000, Mike Shinoda spoke to ShoutWeb about Brad Delson's guitar playing during the song: "He plays full melodies that are only harmonics on his clean guitar that sounds like a keyboard or sounds like a harp or sounds like bells. People have said that it sounds like a hundred different things and they're always thinking that it's not guitar and it is. The whole verse for "In The End" is harmonics. That high-pitched noise is Brad playing."

In 2001, he would talk about the song on ShoutWeb again, but this time, about the lyrics “I tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it doesn’t even matter..”: "Those just popped out. I think I was reacting to the things we as a band had gone through in the beginning. The song almost doesn’t know if it wants to be optimistic or pessimistic – the beginning is a little dark, but you can’t tell (lyrically) if it resolves or not. That’s what I like about it."