The Evanescence Song Interpretation Thread

[Bloodred]

To me, this song is about lonliness. Whenever I hear it, I always get the image of a young girl sitting by herself, not paying attention to anything else around her. And the whole tone of the song suggests a lot of hurt.

[Euge]

To me is about losing someone, not because death perhaps, but losing someone you love. And being in denyal.

Play ground school bell rings again
Rain clouds come to play again
Has no one told you she's not breathing

Days go by and you still having got to the idea, is still all the same for you. Someone breaks it for you, but you fight against it ...


Hello
I'm your mind giving you someone to talk to
Hello

... With this. In your mind that person won't ever leave you. Cannot ever leave you.


If I smile and don't believe
soon I know I'll wake from this dream
Don't try to fix me I'm not broken

People tries to make you forget about the person you lost, to fix you. But you're okay having that person, at least having her/him with you in your mind.


Hello, I'm the lie living for you so you can hide
Don't cry
Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping
Hello I'm still here
all that's left of yesterday

She/He will never leave you for real if you keep thinking of. And here could be like you lie to yourself, keeping alive something that's dead to the other side, but.. it works somehow.



At first I thought of it as having a imaginary friend, like the perspective of a child that's always alone, and that makes herself her only friend. If that makes any sense.

[alicja]

I think it was written in perspective on her mind. She couldent belived that someone who she loved is gone. She tried to pretend that is just a dream but suddenly she woke up and understood that its truth. Its a very sad song. Please forgive me my bad English!

[Invisible-one]

I interpret it more onto myself (even though i know why Amy wrote it) Every time i listen to it, i see a park for some reason, and i'm sitting on a swing. It starts raining ("rainclouds come to play, again") and i just continue swinging, even though i know i need to get away.
It's just like you know that you have to accept what has happened (be it death, heartache or whatever kind of pain that disrupts your world), but your heart still refuses to believe that it could be true. And eventually you wake up and see that your fear is real... totally sad.
XxAmyxX

[KeyStone]

Originally Posted by Cfw828

Alright, enough on Hello, now lets switch the discussion over to the song...

IMAGINARY

Well, you all heard the man! Does he have to double post or something!? Let's get the discussion going people, jeez, you heard it right from the mods mouth! He clearly said that we should change songs, duh! Was i the only one to hear him!?

...heheheh


*tents fingers and waits for gullible people*

[Kristen]

Originally Posted by KeyStone

Well, you all heard the man! Does he have to double post or something!? Let's get the discussion going people, jeez, you heard it right from the mods mouth! He clearly said that we should change songs, duh! Was i the only one to hear him!?

...heheheh


*tents fingers and waits for gullible people*

Ah!

I so fell for this and was so excited. And then I realized you were faking. I am now emo

But yeah I cannot wait for Imaginary to be the song in here...

[Cfw828]

I'm going to give it juuuust a bit more time before I go to the next song.

[Claymore]

Originally Posted by KeyStone

the song is some good proof that Amy is a creative poet.

how true. any debate any non-Ev fan might have over whether or not she's playing for the crowd or actualy bearing her soul in the music would end with this one.
like any good poem, some things are said that arent spoken. so before this portion ends, id like to introduce a different angle (assuming this message goes through the moding queue before it really does end).
ignor the lyrics for a moment. they're fairly streight foward, as previous posts suggest. its a song, so what other elements do we have?
listen to it. just her voice and the piano. long, lethargic pauses between verses. its very lonely, even before she starts singing.
ill offer very few possible answers here. ive never been good at analysing poetry, but i do know where to look. so these are just a few things to consider because i think theyre peculiare. "hello, i am the lie living so you can hide- dont cry" is the last line before the violin takes over, followed by what might be an awakening. where did this violin come from? what does it mean? its the first and only instance of another instrument comming in. and "dont cry" are the only words sung without the piano. it goes on through everything else. almost feels like she has to hold her breath to try to burry the pain in a lie.

"suddenly i realize im not sleeping" taken literaly could be a bad thing. but the way she sings it, higher notes, suggests a positive meaning. "im still here, all thats left of yesterday" is still in the higher notes, so its probably another positive message. perhaps refering to the memories that will always stay with her. and with that realization she can move on.
she finishes singing, or rather this inner monologue has finished, and the piano keeps moveing foward.

also, i wonder about the title. "Hello"? maybe its refering to the epiphany at the end, but even then it seems like an odd choice for a message about loss, denial, and acceptance.

[MLE_Sol]

Alrite, I've got a few interpretations of Hello.

Playground school bell rings, again
Day in and day out, it's the same thing...a young child, living her life (somehow I always see it as a her)...

Rain clouds come to play, again
Day in a day out, life is depressing...

Has no one told you she's not breathing?
This is where my interpretations differ. This person lost someone very close to them, and either isn't willing to admit it, or can't stand the fact that the whole world around them moved on, no one seems to care, while she (or he) is left alone, with that memory. Another is, this girl's heart has been destroyed...either her dreams have been crushed, she has no friends and is made fun of relentlessly, something. She feels like she is dying because there's no one there for her, she has no support. Something along those lines.

Hello, I'm your mind, giving you someone to talk to. Hello!
In the first interpretation (not willing to admit the loss), this person cannot move on without this person they've lost...and so in their mind, this girl they've lost is still alive. So they hold on to those memories because that's all that's left...or create an imaginary friend who is the person they've lost. Regardless, they can't let go.
In the other two mentioned above, they can't talk to society about their problems, they can't talk to anyone...so all they have left is themselves.

If I smile and don't believe, soon I know I awake from this dream
All smiles are fake...nothing makes them happy anymore...maybe soon they'll snap back into reality or overcome their problems, or at least put up with them.

Don't try to fix me I'm not broken
basically "leave me the hell alone" or "there's nothing wrong with me" in any event...this line is why I feel the last interpretation works with the lyrics more--there's nothing wrong with me, so stop trying to make me something I'm not, stop making fun of me for who I am.

Hello, I'm the lie, living for you so you can hide--don't cry!
In not willing to admit their loss, they're caught up in the world they created in which the person is still alive...and is hiding in that world. In the one where the world around them has moved on...the same could apply. In the last theory, the one I think fits the best, the person creates a world in their mind where they are liked by everyone, where good things happen to them, and they hide in that world...living in the lie in their minds, failing to see reality for what it is.

Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping
They snap out of the previously mentioned world they have created

Hello, I'm still here, all that's left of yesterday
All they have left is themselves...that world they created...although now they realize they've created the world and are now seeing reality for what it is, they have the choice to go back to that world or live in this one...they still have that world they created as a crutch to lean on if anything happens.

[saida]

I love Hello, I think it tops even MI, it's much more complicated, sadder and creepier in some way. But onto the interpretation:

The song has a lot of layers so it's kind of hard to see what there is in the bottom.

playground school bell rings again
rain clouds come to play again

I see this as an implication of her being teased at school, seriously, or at least if affecting her very seriously. The bell rings and the recess is over, she has to go back to class where she's all alone, rain clouds are dark thoughts and events that will come and haunt her. This could also be seen as an implication of growing up (I'll talk about this later), the recess is over, she can no longer be a child on a playground, she must enter adulthood which is so much darker, so much more difficult and she doesn't know if she can manage it. Maybe she's not even a child, she's just trapped in that world because being hurt all the time has stopped her growth, has forced her to build her own world where she can never be anything else than a little girl.

has no one told you she's not breathing?
hello i'm your mind giving you someone to talk to
hello

This is tricky. It seems partially that a part of her that still believes somebody could help her tries to ask the world, the people around her if they can't really see that she's lost her soul, her life, her breath, she's afraid she can never be whole again, she's lost her self-esteem, and feels she's slipping away. I think she's also trying to be drastic here, not breathing equals dying, and she's a nice girl who'd never talk about suicide, who'd never do anything so "bad" or "selfish" but now she feels like maybe it'll be her only choice and she's somehow trying to bring the thought out but can't say it as herself, she says it like it was about somebody outside of her. She seems to create another person entirely, her mind, as it were, to help her and be there for her, somebody who seems older, wiser than she is. So in a way I think the lyrics above could be also understood as this separate mind-person telling the girl, can't you see you're killing yourself, you're burying your own mind, you have to be stronger.

if i smile and don't believe
soon i know i'll wake from this dream

It's useless for her to believe she could ever be happy or be left alone by the people causing her pain and if she would let herself be in peace, soon something would happen to make her feel even worse, something would snap her back to the horrible reality.

don't try to fix me i'm not broken

This is a thought that I can relate to as a kind of a depressed person. You know (or just think, but in you're head it's the absolute reality) you're not alright, you know you won't fit in, ever. Nobody will ever see you, really. But still, you don't want to change yourself. Your own soul is all you've got and even if it is a little twisted already, it's still yours. The world is the one that's wrong, not you and it just makes you feel worse that nobody sees it, nobody tries to help you. Just because you're withdrawn and strange, it doesn't mean something's wrong with you. If you try to ask for help, people say "you should just get it together, try harder, stop being such a cry-baby" and it makes you feel like you want to die.

hello i'm the lie living for you so you can hide
don't cry

This is the mind-person again, she turns up every time the girl has a more difficult thought in her head, a one she can't believe she's thinking, something that's truly what's in her heart but not okay. I think she's a very good girl and the darkness inside of her, caused by the pain people have made her suffer, scares her and is alien to her, she tries to channel it to another person. In this part, though, it seems that she puts on a shell, she hides behind the person or personality she created. She won't show her pain to anybody, she'll hide away her real self, even if won't do any good, but she has to do it, to preserve something real in herself.

suddenly i know i'm not sleeping
hello i'm still here
all that's left of yesterday

This is where something drastic happens. I don't quite know what. Sometimes I think that there's a theme of growing up in here and at the end she realizes that she's trapped, she never had any support, she was just an object of ridicule and she felt nothing but pain, she can't move on, she can't evolve, she can never be an adult. She's in a coffin. Then other times I think the mind-person she created took her over. She can no longer control it. She lost herself and she wakes up into the knowledge of being controlled by something else, something inside her own head.

Then I also see a more positive ending in these last lines. In it she wakes up, all the lines are spoken by her now, the "Hello I'm still here" is hers now and not the mind-persons like it was everytime earlier in the song. She stands up and even if she's shattered and hurting, she now demands the attention and not just tries to ask for it quietly. The end isn't horrible positive, maybe it was the wrong word. She's still messed up and sees the problem of not being able to move forward (All that's left of yesterday, which could also mean for the people hurting her that she's a reminder of the things they did wrong, they must take responsibility) and doesn't know what to do, doesn't know how to live, but is still angry and finds her own voice and isn't a victim anymore. Also, she has to break her own shell, her coffin and be strong, not to hide in her own head, that's the only way for her to grown into her own person.

Well, this is like a forever-long post, sorry I'm a bit weird sometimes. But I just love analyzing things sooo much