I was gifted a Google Music subscription a while back and I have kept it. I think my family uses it more than I do, but it has let me explore music more than I have in the past. This past week I was looking for something to listen to on my way home and I decided to listen to an album I haven't listened to in a few years. As I was listening to it, I recalled how emotionally attached I am to this album and how I listened to it during the hardest times I had in my life. I listened to it almost exclusively. The album is the self-titled "Evanescence". To set up the rest of this narrative, I'll first refer to a post by the artist.
Now, because what I was going through wasn't what Amy was singing about, I took her lyrics and split them up, made lessons and thoughts about them in my own mind. One verse was related to this, another verse I took for that. Some songs I couldn't relate to but I had an idea what she was singing about and I let her have her expression.
The backdrop for me when this album came out was my own marriage being stressed because of my investigations into my religion. I had found things that I was completely not in agreement and my own anger and desperation was making my marriage fall apart. It was changing a dynamic that we always had. I didn't want my wife to hate me as I still loved her but I could no longer give fealty to a belief I no longer had. I had a close friend lose her husband and I had no way, I felt, to help her or give support. She was easily one of the most influential people in my life, if she realized it or not. I had another friend that was being abused. I had countless friends online that were struggling with this religion issue and their marriages were dissolving. I could only see what was happening to them as being in my future. I was going through the mid-life crisis where I was looking at my life wondering what I wanted out of it. I had spent so much of my energy living for others, delaying my own happiness for the sake of other organizations and people. All that anger and frustration of learning that I had wasted so much on something that had lied to me was still fresh in my mind and still unresolved. That is why I wanted to scream out my anguish, my helplessness to that which was going on around me.
BTW, song titles are links to song videos.
Hello, hello remember me?
I'm everything…
This felt so true. I felt I was failing everyone. The people I cared the most for had or were in the process of leaving me. I loved these people, more than anything else in my life, and I just couldn't make it work. I wasn't there for them. I said the wrong things. Felt the wrong way.
This is one of my favorite songs on the album. The belting out of "My heart is broken" seems so much more appropriate than the quiet suffering so many of us go through. I know I was afraid to express my grief at times. It would have been mocked and minimized. I have had grief treated this way. I will express that in a later song.
Also, since a friend had her husband recently die, this song also held deep meaning in that regard. I can't imagine the pain and loss that she went through. I could only use this song to sympathize with her.
I will wander 'til the end of time, torn away from you
I pull away to face the pain
I close my eyes and drift away
Over the fear that I will never find
A way to heal my soul
And I will wander 'til the end of time
Torn away from you
In terms of my own life, I've had to do this. The pulling away I was then feeling while my wife and I sorted out our lives. I also did this during the break up that occurred on my mission. I disassociated from some of the things around me because I needed to clear my head, change to the new situation. The "wandering 'till the end of time" is a natural feeling in that you don't think you will ever get over this. I felt this on my mission because I respected her desires and my own mistakes were at the forefront of my mind. I had no friends around me to help me bear the grief. No support from the system because their counsel was that I shouldn't have been serious about anyone. This was all part of the culture. "Dear John'ed on the mission" isn't anything to take seriously. It is laughed at and ridiculed. In such a patriarchal culture, I didn't feel like I could even express emotion. I was jealous, controlling and frustrated that I was so far away, so distant from the person I was. In some ways, I did wander for a long time, at least. Unresolved thoughts are a horrible thing to take with you. I tried to console myself that it was a one-sided relationship. Maybe it was. I had no doubt that she would forget me, seeing me as a bad experience on her part. Lord knows, I hated what I had become.
I can't go on living this way
And I can't go back the way I came
Shamed of this fear that I will never find
A way to heal my soul
And I will wander 'til the end of time
Half a life without you
This was absolutely what I felt at the time with my wife. I couldn't unlearn what I had learned. The toothpaste wasn't going back in the tube. If she insisted upon me not changing, to live up to something I now found unworthy of my life, I would have to find a path without her, like so many others I had known. I didn't want that to happen. I didn't need her to agree with me, I needed her understanding. I loved Tracy. She was there for me. I didn't want what we had to end just because of this. I can't go back, but I thought I could still go forward with her. The love of my life didn't need to slip away because we didn't agree on everything. I knew her like I knew no other.
My heart is broken
Sweet sleep, my dark angel
Deliver us, change, open your eyes to the light
I denied it all so long, oh so long
Say goodbye, goodbye
My heart is broken
Release me, I can't hold on
Deliver me! I had so much bottled up in me. I denied it all, that any of it mattered, that it would all go away with time. I wanted it to go away, but I couldn't until I told the people that mattered, that it mattered.
Grief had a hold of me for decades. I was encountering it in my own life, and the life of others and I felt powerless in those waves. All I could do was be honest, be open and look for some acceptance. It didn't matter that others couldn't relate. This was me. I cared, I care. I'm heartbroken for me, my friends, and my love. And it needed to be sung at a high volume.
I want to add here that it wasn't just the need to scream out that I was heart-broken. So often I had to stop in a vacant lot and cry it all out. Not something I wanted known at the time. It's hard to drive seeing through tears. But it was, I believe, an honest emotion.
Counting the days to meet you on the other side
I will always be waiting
Until the day that I see you on the other side
Come and take me home
I'm not giving in, I want you back
Holding together by the shards of our past
Stole my heart away, I can't let you go
Break these chains and let me fly to you high above the world below
Over and over in my mind
I don't relate this song to me. I don't know if Amy is singing about a lost love (metaphorical) or somebody that has passed on. I have thoughts about my friend who lost her husband, or anyone that might have been in that situation. I didn't know that pain personally, but I can sympathize.
And this brings me to other thoughts. I know one of the reasons I clung to the belief in an afterlife was that I wanted a chance to tell those people that meant so much to me, that I no longer had contact with, how much they meant to me, and how I grew from knowing them. When I discovered Facebook, it was one of the first things I did, reach out and tell people how much they influenced me. I should do that more often. I have a good set of people around me.
(lyrics)
I'm not sure what in particular Amy was working through but I have ideas in what I took from it. I feel the desperation of what happens when a poor choice is made and it was a decision that tears down the people around them. This was more of a one-on-one song, but I know what it felt like to screw up so completely or to say something that ruins a life planned on. I knew it in several times of my life. If you listen, you can hear the self-flagellation that is going on, the knowledge that it could have been different. I'm just going to post the lyrics and highlight what I am talking about.
It's too late to change your mind
Even though this fragile world
Is tearing apart at the seams
We can't wash these sins away
This sinking feeling everyday
I'm waking up in someone else's life
Not gonna let this day go by
I'm gonna save this wasted life
And nothing can stand in my way
Not enough to say goodbye
Burn it til there's nothing left
I'm drowning in the mess that I have made
The water's rising around us
There is no other way down
I only have myself to blame for it all
Is it so hard for you?
'Cause it's so hard for me
To believe that what we dreamed
Could ever come to life again
If I could just erase my mind
But I cannot erase this lie
This is a song that I don't listen to. The music and the lyrics are a bit mismatched in my opinion. The lyrics are dark and depressing. They have very little hope in them as they are describing the bad section of depression, with no real resolution explained. The lyrics are very expressive though. The music is a bit too bright, too positive of a tune for such lyrics like this.
Don't want to be the one to walk away
But I can't bear the thought of one more day
I think I finally understand what it means to be lost
Can't find the road to lead us out of this
A million miles from where we burned the bridge
Can't keep pretending everything's going to be alright
With the whole world falling down on me
Cross the oceans in my mind
Find the strength to say goodbye
Everything that we believed in was a lie
Cross the oceans in your mind
Find a way to blur the line
In the end, you never can wash the blood from your hands
Oh, we never learn
So we fall down again
Heaven, help me find a way to dream within this nightmare
I'll let Amy give her meaning to the song.
Are, are you there?
Nothing left for me 'til I find you because it's
All gone. The only world I've ever known sleeps beneath the waves
But I'm the one who's drowning without your love
I am lost and I can never go back
I, I can never go back home
(lyrics)
This song was written about dying and the bittersweet acceptance of death. At least, that is what Amy Lee said. The song is fairly self-explanatory in that regard. The most I can say about it is that I feel the music and the lyrics are perfectly matched, something that this album suffers from on other songs.
I'm sorry
Nothing can hold me
I adore you still
But I hear them calling
And nothing can hold me
I think the most profound lyric I found in the song was "I adore you still". My mind always moves towards the religious undertones of the word, more like a kind of worship. I don't think that was what was on Amy's mind when she wrote it. I have my own love of the word, "adore" as I don't know if it is more or less than "love". It seems stronger, and in this context, it seems to be stronger. I don't know who she is talking to in this song. Perhaps a lover. Hmmm. not sure. This is being drawn away from a lover to do what has to be done. It seems that is part of being human, understanding what is happening at death.
It is a powerful song, well placed within this album.
My guess is that this song is written to Amy's first bandmate who left due to artistic differences. I think there was some bad blood there. While I feel this is one of the best songs on the album, I admit that some of it doesn't make any sense to me.
My biggest take away on the song is the middle lyric. It, for me, plays a dual role for my trying to deal with my own life, my own faith crisis and my difficulties with others understanding and also my own conflicts with others, one that makes me be empathetic by seeing their lives from their point of view. That is a lot to put on one verse, but I really do feel that way. In those times when I was my own brand of jerk, or times when I struggled with hearing other's feelings about me. I needed to process things. This lyric has pushed my recognition of that from days to minutes. I truly care about people, and I can't discount other's feelings because of my own selfish desires or thoughts. Amy clearly and distinctly says what I need my inner voice to scream at me. And it does. There is immediacy in some song lyrics and in this I have helped find empathy for others.
So go and tell all your friends
That I'm a failure underneath
If it makes you feel like a bigger man
But it's my, my heart, my life
That you're calling a lie
I've played this game before
And I can't take anymore!
In my recollection, I haven't found too much fault in others, but there are times when I have been too quick to judge. I don't want words to this effect said to me. I have. And I deserved it. I've had girlfriends and my wife get upset with me. I get it. I've discounted them. I've been selfish. I've behaved badly.
I cannot judge other's lives and their decisions. I was once part of a religion that did it all the time, and yet it was against their own scriptures to do so. (And part of their scriptures to do so....I know, I know....) I can't. I can't live my life only through my own eyes. I need to let others be who they are.
I could write, and have written, more to this line of thought. I won't at present. This verse just brings it all home to me, forces me to acknowledge others because I care for and respect them. Because I love them.
I feel it coming over me
I'm still a slave to these dreams
Is this the end of everything?
Or just a new way to bleed?
With my marriage struggling and opening myself up to others, as well as trying to understand their lives and feelings, I didn't know where all this was going. Was I going to divorce? Was I going to make it all work out but with a spouse that might not respect me and my decisions? Will my friends make it work out for them? I felt so impotent on so many levels. I wanted to help but my own home was on fire. I wanted a different life, but this is what I had. How was this all going to fix itself?
"Is this just a new way to bleed" certainly described my life then. And Amy could belt it out, and I needed that kind of energy.
Can't you feel the ground caving in?
Give us a reason to believe again!
I just finally finished reading all of the letters I received from our friends in Australia. It made me realize something I have to give thanks for- to all our fans.
It is a precious gift to feel the unexpected fulfillment you have given me. Independent from anything I could ever try to do to touch you, help you, speak to you- the broken fumblings through my own heartbreak, fears, and dreams actually brought you to reflect your hearts back to me in a way that shows me undeniable proof that I am not alone. The idea that the music I’ve made ever helped anyone is amazing to me. It was never my mission- I was working on me. Working through my own pain. But through trying to help myself, I reached you- and the most incredible and unexpected part is how you reached me back. Thank you.
~Amy LeeI can't separate her life from the music I was listening to. I know it wasn't related to what I was going through. Amy had loves to resolve, deaths of family members to fuel her singing. I didn't have those things. I had loss of faith, frustrations with situations, empathy with no release, a world-view that was shattered in my mind. I also needed something to shout to. I needed that energy to go somewhere. If nothing else, Amy could belt out a feeling, an emotion writ large, in a way that I haven't found others could. I didn't want to fix this with a whimper. I had whimpered my emotions all my life. This was real and I needed to get it out.
Now, because what I was going through wasn't what Amy was singing about, I took her lyrics and split them up, made lessons and thoughts about them in my own mind. One verse was related to this, another verse I took for that. Some songs I couldn't relate to but I had an idea what she was singing about and I let her have her expression.
BTW, song titles are links to song videos.
What You Want
(lyrics)
I'm not particularly fond of this song, but it was their first release of the album and their first video. There are a few things from the lyrics that I do have some thoughts about.
Hello, hello remember me?
I'm everything you can't control
Somewhere beyond the pain
There must be a way to believe we can break through
I have learned that most of life you have little to no control over. I guess that is very Buddhist of me but I think it is true. Situations come up that change your life and you are simply a spectator. Trying to find some way past it was what I was spending all my energy with. So much of this was internal because I was still afraid that showing my own emotion would be detrimental to my relationships.
But every hour slipping by screams that I have failed youHello, hello remember me?
I'm everything…
This felt so true. I felt I was failing everyone. The people I cared the most for had or were in the process of leaving me. I loved these people, more than anything else in my life, and I just couldn't make it work. I wasn't there for them. I said the wrong things. Felt the wrong way.
Made of Stone
(lyrics)
This is about a bad relationship. I don't have much to say about this. I'm more internal facing. I don't look at others and think of how wrong they are, but what I could have done to change things. I guess I've been lucky in that I just don't feel this kind of emotion towards anyone. Amy does. She can.
The Change
(lyrics)
Another bad relationship song. Also not one of my favorites from them. It is a great song but I can't relate on a personal level.
Thought that I was strong
I know the words I need to say
Frozen in my place
I let the moment slip away
This first verse is about all that I have a comment on. I've had this problem. At times I'm not able to swallow my pride and admit fault or just can't say or find the right words, so I freeze. I know I've caused Tracy frustration at some of our discussions, and I just couldn't verbalize or whatever you feel at those moments.
I think this might also apply to what we were going through in that she felt I was changing the terms of our contract. We were supposed to live one way, agreed when we married and here I was moving in a different direction.
My Heart Is Broken
My guess is that Amy directed this song towards her sister that died when she was 6 but I could be wrong.
This is one of my favorite songs on the album. The belting out of "My heart is broken" seems so much more appropriate than the quiet suffering so many of us go through. I know I was afraid to express my grief at times. It would have been mocked and minimized. I have had grief treated this way. I will express that in a later song.
Also, since a friend had her husband recently die, this song also held deep meaning in that regard. I can't imagine the pain and loss that she went through. I could only use this song to sympathize with her.
I will wander 'til the end of time, torn away from you
I pull away to face the pain
I close my eyes and drift away
Over the fear that I will never find
A way to heal my soul
And I will wander 'til the end of time
Torn away from you
In terms of my own life, I've had to do this. The pulling away I was then feeling while my wife and I sorted out our lives. I also did this during the break up that occurred on my mission. I disassociated from some of the things around me because I needed to clear my head, change to the new situation. The "wandering 'till the end of time" is a natural feeling in that you don't think you will ever get over this. I felt this on my mission because I respected her desires and my own mistakes were at the forefront of my mind. I had no friends around me to help me bear the grief. No support from the system because their counsel was that I shouldn't have been serious about anyone. This was all part of the culture. "Dear John'ed on the mission" isn't anything to take seriously. It is laughed at and ridiculed. In such a patriarchal culture, I didn't feel like I could even express emotion. I was jealous, controlling and frustrated that I was so far away, so distant from the person I was. In some ways, I did wander for a long time, at least. Unresolved thoughts are a horrible thing to take with you. I tried to console myself that it was a one-sided relationship. Maybe it was. I had no doubt that she would forget me, seeing me as a bad experience on her part. Lord knows, I hated what I had become.
I can't go on living this way
And I can't go back the way I came
Shamed of this fear that I will never find
A way to heal my soul
And I will wander 'til the end of time
Half a life without you
This was absolutely what I felt at the time with my wife. I couldn't unlearn what I had learned. The toothpaste wasn't going back in the tube. If she insisted upon me not changing, to live up to something I now found unworthy of my life, I would have to find a path without her, like so many others I had known. I didn't want that to happen. I didn't need her to agree with me, I needed her understanding. I loved Tracy. She was there for me. I didn't want what we had to end just because of this. I can't go back, but I thought I could still go forward with her. The love of my life didn't need to slip away because we didn't agree on everything. I knew her like I knew no other.
My heart is broken
Sweet sleep, my dark angel
Deliver us, change, open your eyes to the light
I denied it all so long, oh so long
Say goodbye, goodbye
My heart is broken
Release me, I can't hold on
Deliver me! I had so much bottled up in me. I denied it all, that any of it mattered, that it would all go away with time. I wanted it to go away, but I couldn't until I told the people that mattered, that it mattered.
Grief had a hold of me for decades. I was encountering it in my own life, and the life of others and I felt powerless in those waves. All I could do was be honest, be open and look for some acceptance. It didn't matter that others couldn't relate. This was me. I cared, I care. I'm heartbroken for me, my friends, and my love. And it needed to be sung at a high volume.
I want to add here that it wasn't just the need to scream out that I was heart-broken. So often I had to stop in a vacant lot and cry it all out. Not something I wanted known at the time. It's hard to drive seeing through tears. But it was, I believe, an honest emotion.
The Other Side
(lyrics)Counting the days to meet you on the other side
I will always be waiting
Until the day that I see you on the other side
Come and take me home
I'm not giving in, I want you back
Holding together by the shards of our past
Stole my heart away, I can't let you go
Break these chains and let me fly to you high above the world below
Over and over in my mind
I don't relate this song to me. I don't know if Amy is singing about a lost love (metaphorical) or somebody that has passed on. I have thoughts about my friend who lost her husband, or anyone that might have been in that situation. I didn't know that pain personally, but I can sympathize.
And this brings me to other thoughts. I know one of the reasons I clung to the belief in an afterlife was that I wanted a chance to tell those people that meant so much to me, that I no longer had contact with, how much they meant to me, and how I grew from knowing them. When I discovered Facebook, it was one of the first things I did, reach out and tell people how much they influenced me. I should do that more often. I have a good set of people around me.
Erase This
(lyrics)
I'm not sure what in particular Amy was working through but I have ideas in what I took from it. I feel the desperation of what happens when a poor choice is made and it was a decision that tears down the people around them. This was more of a one-on-one song, but I know what it felt like to screw up so completely or to say something that ruins a life planned on. I knew it in several times of my life. If you listen, you can hear the self-flagellation that is going on, the knowledge that it could have been different. I'm just going to post the lyrics and highlight what I am talking about.
It's too late to change your mind
Even though this fragile world
Is tearing apart at the seams
We can't wash these sins away
This sinking feeling everyday
I'm waking up in someone else's life
Not gonna let this day go by
I'm gonna save this wasted life
And nothing can stand in my way
Not enough to say goodbye
Burn it til there's nothing left
I'm drowning in the mess that I have made
The water's rising around us
There is no other way down
I only have myself to blame for it all
Is it so hard for you?
'Cause it's so hard for me
To believe that what we dreamed
Could ever come to life again
If I could just erase my mind
But I cannot erase this lie
(lyrics)
Amy Lee has said that this song was written to her fans that had waited for a new album. I always wondered if it was written for a movie soundtrack, mainly for the line "as if I was human" but I always was open to the idea of it being rhetorical, or sarcastic.
This is one of my favorite songs on the album. I can put it in so many different contexts. Promises to friends, suffering when things appear to be going well. I put this in terms of what was around me at the time. I had changed in some very fundamental ways without involving my wife on that journey. I felt powerless with friends and my inability to help them. I was leaving my God, the one I had devoted so much time and energy towards because I just couldn't suspend my disbelief anymore.
I've been believing in something so distant as if I was human
And I've been denying this feeling of hopelessness
In me, in me
All the promises I made just to let you down
You believed in me, but I'm broken
I have nothing left
And all I feel is this cruel wanting
We've been falling for all this time
And now I'm lost in paradise
The lines, "I have nothing left, and all I feel is this cruel wanting." were, at the time, a perfect expression of how I felt. I wanted things different. I wanted to feel some other emotions, but I couldn't. I don't know if the depression I was in was worse than my mission. I mean, I had slow starvation going on there as well as everything else. This I think was a bit more profound, but I also had 25 years behind me to know that it wouldn't always be like this. No matter how this worked out, it would work out.
As much as I'd like the past not to exist it still does
And as much as I'd like to feel like I belong here
I'm just as scared as you
I made a lot of mistakes. A past I'd rather not remember. But it was there. Plus where I was...I was scared.
Run away, run away
One day we won't feel this pain anymore
Take it all the way
Shadows of you
'Cause they won't let me go
I couldn't direct this song to a person like Amy seems to. I did know that I would climb out of this eventually. I think Amy might be referring to something a bit more final but I wasn't.
I was looking towards something more tolerable. The only time I contemplated separation from Tracy was during this time. It wasn't for my piece of mind, it was for hers. I felt I was so disruptive to the children and to her that it would be better for me to leave for a while. Then the thought that separation so often leads to divorce...great, other GD failure on my card. I won't go into how far down that trail of thought I actually went. For me, it was far, but in reality, it wasn't. I didn't want to grow to hate Tracy, as I've seen happen in so many other divorces. I just wanted a bit of clarity, a revision of my life. I don't know. I think time has taken the edge off that part in my life to some degree.
I remember posting this on Facebook and I referred to the politics of the time. In reality, it was the way I felt about the church. I had given up my life, my sanity, to this organization and when I started diving into the history, I found something different than what I had been taught. I had trusted them with my time, my family...and it was based on nothing but air. My doctrinal breaking points were that the restoration of the priesthood didn't happen, or rather, was "discovered" about 5 years later. The witnesses of the Book of Mormon were untrustworthy. Martin Harris stated in the Kirtland Temple that he saw the plates "like a person sees a city through a mountain." They all believed in this second sight nonsense. Half of the 12 left soon after this. The First Vision wasn't expressed publically until 1838 (or 1842). Visitation by Moroni was originally Nephi. The memoirs of Lucy Mack Smith was changed to coincide with other changes of the story...etc. The temple ceremony was taken from an 18th century masonic ritual (And they were really into masonic rituals and the power that it brought) to keep polygamy quiet and the women and men obedient. I loved the temple or rather the idea of the temple and it kept me in the church for some time. I was sick of being lied to.
Sick of it all, sick of it all
We will not follow
Sick of it all, sick of it all
They don't understand how
Sick we are, sick we are
Of this bottomless pit of lies behind closed eyes
Someday you'll know the peace
Someday the light will break through
And nothing you tell yourself
Will save us from the truth
Amy Lee has said that this song was written to her fans that had waited for a new album. I always wondered if it was written for a movie soundtrack, mainly for the line "as if I was human" but I always was open to the idea of it being rhetorical, or sarcastic.
This is one of my favorite songs on the album. I can put it in so many different contexts. Promises to friends, suffering when things appear to be going well. I put this in terms of what was around me at the time. I had changed in some very fundamental ways without involving my wife on that journey. I felt powerless with friends and my inability to help them. I was leaving my God, the one I had devoted so much time and energy towards because I just couldn't suspend my disbelief anymore.
I've been believing in something so distant as if I was human
And I've been denying this feeling of hopelessness
In me, in me
All the promises I made just to let you down
You believed in me, but I'm broken
I have nothing left
And all I feel is this cruel wanting
We've been falling for all this time
And now I'm lost in paradise
The lines, "I have nothing left, and all I feel is this cruel wanting." were, at the time, a perfect expression of how I felt. I wanted things different. I wanted to feel some other emotions, but I couldn't. I don't know if the depression I was in was worse than my mission. I mean, I had slow starvation going on there as well as everything else. This I think was a bit more profound, but I also had 25 years behind me to know that it wouldn't always be like this. No matter how this worked out, it would work out.
As much as I'd like the past not to exist it still does
And as much as I'd like to feel like I belong here
I'm just as scared as you
I made a lot of mistakes. A past I'd rather not remember. But it was there. Plus where I was...I was scared.
Run away, run away
One day we won't feel this pain anymore
Take it all the way
Shadows of you
'Cause they won't let me go
I couldn't direct this song to a person like Amy seems to. I did know that I would climb out of this eventually. I think Amy might be referring to something a bit more final but I wasn't.
I was looking towards something more tolerable. The only time I contemplated separation from Tracy was during this time. It wasn't for my piece of mind, it was for hers. I felt I was so disruptive to the children and to her that it would be better for me to leave for a while. Then the thought that separation so often leads to divorce...great, other GD failure on my card. I won't go into how far down that trail of thought I actually went. For me, it was far, but in reality, it wasn't. I didn't want to grow to hate Tracy, as I've seen happen in so many other divorces. I just wanted a bit of clarity, a revision of my life. I don't know. I think time has taken the edge off that part in my life to some degree.
Sick
(lyrics)I remember posting this on Facebook and I referred to the politics of the time. In reality, it was the way I felt about the church. I had given up my life, my sanity, to this organization and when I started diving into the history, I found something different than what I had been taught. I had trusted them with my time, my family...and it was based on nothing but air. My doctrinal breaking points were that the restoration of the priesthood didn't happen, or rather, was "discovered" about 5 years later. The witnesses of the Book of Mormon were untrustworthy. Martin Harris stated in the Kirtland Temple that he saw the plates "like a person sees a city through a mountain." They all believed in this second sight nonsense. Half of the 12 left soon after this. The First Vision wasn't expressed publically until 1838 (or 1842). Visitation by Moroni was originally Nephi. The memoirs of Lucy Mack Smith was changed to coincide with other changes of the story...etc. The temple ceremony was taken from an 18th century masonic ritual (And they were really into masonic rituals and the power that it brought) to keep polygamy quiet and the women and men obedient. I loved the temple or rather the idea of the temple and it kept me in the church for some time. I was sick of being lied to.
Sick of it all, sick of it all
We will not follow
Sick of it all, sick of it all
They don't understand how
Sick we are, sick we are
Of this bottomless pit of lies behind closed eyes
Someday you'll know the peace
Someday the light will break through
And nothing you tell yourself
Will save us from the truth
The End of the Dream
(lyrics)
Amy explained that this song is about her relationship with life and death. And I take this song in a positive light, even though it is pretty heavy. It actually reminds me of the times I felt depressed when I was a teenager I investigated those feelings, even if it wasn't happy or my emotions were at a low level. The lyric "As much as it hurts, ain't it wonderful to feel?" beautifully expresses what I thought at the time. I felt the same during this low period in my life, that even though my emotions were raw and painful and with no resolution in sight, I still could feel and understand it.
As much as it hurts
Ain't it wonderful to feel?
So go on and break your wings
Follow your heart 'til it bleeds
As we run towards the end of the dream
And the positive point is that I can overcome all this, as others have. It might end with lack of friendship, even divorce, but I can survive it. I need to be true to myself and overcome the limitations I was feeling.
I'm not afraid
I push through the pain
And I'm on fire
I remember how to breathe again
Why must we fall apart to understand how to fly?
I will find a way even without wings
Oceans
(lyrics)This is a song that I don't listen to. The music and the lyrics are a bit mismatched in my opinion. The lyrics are dark and depressing. They have very little hope in them as they are describing the bad section of depression, with no real resolution explained. The lyrics are very expressive though. The music is a bit too bright, too positive of a tune for such lyrics like this.
Don't want to be the one to walk away
But I can't bear the thought of one more day
I think I finally understand what it means to be lost
Can't find the road to lead us out of this
A million miles from where we burned the bridge
Can't keep pretending everything's going to be alright
With the whole world falling down on me
Cross the oceans in my mind
Find the strength to say goodbye
Everything that we believed in was a lie
Cross the oceans in your mind
Find a way to blur the line
In the end, you never can wash the blood from your hands
Oh, we never learn
So we fall down again
Heaven, help me find a way to dream within this nightmare
Never Go Back
(lyrics)I'll let Amy give her meaning to the song.
"It wasn't about my life so much. ... When we first got into pre-production, the earthquakes and tsunami happened in Japan, and we were all just totally glued to paying attention to it, all these incredibly heartbreaking images, and we just [thought], 'Wow,' " she said. "And I was thinking about it a lot. It was consuming my mind, and we were working on that song at the same time. I was kind of working on lyrics at night; we'd practice all day, and I'd go home at night and be working on lyrics by myself. And I came in the next day and was like, 'Guys, I'm going to make this song about the tsunami.' "This also isn't a song I listen to much. Again, a mismatch of the lyrics and the tune. It does go with her familiar themes about drowning and the water. I'm sure it is because it is such a great metaphor for being overwhelmed with life and emotions. Before I knew it was about the Tsunami, it made me think about a horrible breakup or death of a loved one. It is a hopeless song.
Are, are you there?
Nothing left for me 'til I find you because it's
All gone. The only world I've ever known sleeps beneath the waves
But I'm the one who's drowning without your love
I am lost and I can never go back
I, I can never go back home
Swimming Home
(lyrics)
This song was written about dying and the bittersweet acceptance of death. At least, that is what Amy Lee said. The song is fairly self-explanatory in that regard. The most I can say about it is that I feel the music and the lyrics are perfectly matched, something that this album suffers from on other songs.
I'm sorry
Nothing can hold me
I adore you still
But I hear them calling
And nothing can hold me
I think the most profound lyric I found in the song was "I adore you still". My mind always moves towards the religious undertones of the word, more like a kind of worship. I don't think that was what was on Amy's mind when she wrote it. I have my own love of the word, "adore" as I don't know if it is more or less than "love". It seems stronger, and in this context, it seems to be stronger. I don't know who she is talking to in this song. Perhaps a lover. Hmmm. not sure. This is being drawn away from a lover to do what has to be done. It seems that is part of being human, understanding what is happening at death.
It is a powerful song, well placed within this album.
A New Way To Bleed
(lyrics)My guess is that this song is written to Amy's first bandmate who left due to artistic differences. I think there was some bad blood there. While I feel this is one of the best songs on the album, I admit that some of it doesn't make any sense to me.
My biggest take away on the song is the middle lyric. It, for me, plays a dual role for my trying to deal with my own life, my own faith crisis and my difficulties with others understanding and also my own conflicts with others, one that makes me be empathetic by seeing their lives from their point of view. That is a lot to put on one verse, but I really do feel that way. In those times when I was my own brand of jerk, or times when I struggled with hearing other's feelings about me. I needed to process things. This lyric has pushed my recognition of that from days to minutes. I truly care about people, and I can't discount other's feelings because of my own selfish desires or thoughts. Amy clearly and distinctly says what I need my inner voice to scream at me. And it does. There is immediacy in some song lyrics and in this I have helped find empathy for others.
So go and tell all your friends
That I'm a failure underneath
If it makes you feel like a bigger man
But it's my, my heart, my life
That you're calling a lie
I've played this game before
And I can't take anymore!
In my recollection, I haven't found too much fault in others, but there are times when I have been too quick to judge. I don't want words to this effect said to me. I have. And I deserved it. I've had girlfriends and my wife get upset with me. I get it. I've discounted them. I've been selfish. I've behaved badly.
I cannot judge other's lives and their decisions. I was once part of a religion that did it all the time, and yet it was against their own scriptures to do so. (And part of their scriptures to do so....I know, I know....) I can't. I can't live my life only through my own eyes. I need to let others be who they are.
I could write, and have written, more to this line of thought. I won't at present. This verse just brings it all home to me, forces me to acknowledge others because I care for and respect them. Because I love them.
I feel it coming over me
I'm still a slave to these dreams
Is this the end of everything?
Or just a new way to bleed?
With my marriage struggling and opening myself up to others, as well as trying to understand their lives and feelings, I didn't know where all this was going. Was I going to divorce? Was I going to make it all work out but with a spouse that might not respect me and my decisions? Will my friends make it work out for them? I felt so impotent on so many levels. I wanted to help but my own home was on fire. I wanted a different life, but this is what I had. How was this all going to fix itself?
"Is this just a new way to bleed" certainly described my life then. And Amy could belt it out, and I needed that kind of energy.
Can't you feel the ground caving in?
Give us a reason to believe again!
