The Evanescence Song Interpretation Thread

[SoMissing]

Originally Posted by Cfw828

Ok ok ok....

Next song

Breathe No More

YAAAAAAAAAY! lool i dont know how come you're up soo early on New Year's but that came to my advantage

and now....breathe no more and let the drum roll...*trumpets*

shit ok DRUM ROLL *drum rollllllllllllllllllllllllll*

I've been looking in the mirror for so long.
That I've come to believe my souls on the other side.

Amy isnt living her own self. Shes living a lie...shes pretending to be some1 else. The mirror is metaphoric..she doesnt actually see her image as being the true her. To me the mirror represents her inner self, the thoughts she has, her guilty conscience of playing a role she doesnt fit in..pretending to be some1 else to satisfy the others

Oh the little pieces falling, shatter.
Shards of me,
To sharp to put back together.
To small to matter,
But big enough to cut me into so many little pieces.
If I try to touch her,
And I bleed,
I bleed,
And I breathe,
I breathe no more.

Simple and straight forward..this is Amy's reality check. Everytime she has a "clash" between the presumed Amy and true Amy she's hurt. The bleeding is a representation of her state of extreme pain..whats more hurtful than bleeding from a mirror-cut (or a migrane...whatever lol). The "shards" point out to Amy's state of confusion and her being lost..shattered to the point where she cant pull her self back together or find the true her

Take a breath and I try to draw from my spirits well.
Yet again you refuse to drink like a stubborn child.

Im assuming this refers to a dear person to Amy..maybe an x boyfriend or close family member...whoever it is meant to be for, Amy here explains how she gets rejected everytime she tries to go back to her trueself. Drawing from her spirits well resembles the search for her inner truth, and the refusal to drink is the rejection...that person or people want to immobilize Amy in her state of lies and presumptions, locking up the true her

Lie to me,
Convince me that I've been sick forever.
And all of this,
Will make sense when I get better.

Trying to convince Amy that shes living an ordinary life, that whatever she thinks is fake is actually the truth, and that her state of denial is temporary...to her they all sound as lies

I know the difference,
Between myself and my reflection.
I just can't help but to wonder,
Which of us do you love.

The question that strikes almost everysingle one of us: "If i were to be someone else, would person X still love me?" Amy doesnt have to wonder about it...she lives it...shes both Amy and presumed Amy...and she doesnt know which one is dearest or most with-held

Now if we put together all of these lines in a full interpretation, we get this lol : (prepare yourselves for a long one)

My take on the song, and ive heard this interpretation many times, this song is about Amy being involved in somekind of highly demanding relationship, that causes her to act out as some1 that she isnt. She hides her identity, and wishes she can exist as herself, and her thoughts lead her to a point where she rebells against the life shes leading, and wonder whether those who love her love the true Amy or the presumed Amy.

The lyrics move like a short story, she introduces herself as a reflection of her self-created lie, an image in a shattering mirror that seems to hurt her everytime she tries to fix it. The bleeding and lack of breath isnt suicidal, i believe, although others may disagree, her bleeding is a mere rep of her pain, and her lack of breath reps her need to move on and "cross to the other side of the mirror", where her true self is. Although i dont know who she specifically is referring to in the 2nd verse, u can only assume shes talking about those who surround her continuously, such as her family and friends, who might have lied to her about something that she had come to discover and hid away from.

She tries hard to return to her own true self, but every1 rejects her true change, they refuse to drink from her spirits well which means they reject her truthness.

I have heard from some ppl that BNM was written for a close reason to that of Hello, a journal if u like of Amy's thoughts during the time which she was devastated with her sister's death. Others claimed this was Amy's response to an obsessive and violent relationship, where Amy had to pretend she was happy and wish for the best, hoping one day it will get better. In the course of whichever reason, Amy loses herself to the lies shes surrounded by, and realises that its killing her.

This is a perfect song for Elektra...shes a lost soul...and she breathes no more

[rara1985]

okay since Breath No More wasn't written for Electra i'll not relate it to ...especially since i haven't seen it yet ...it. I think it is about a relationship were the person is famous or successful and the other person that isn't famous or successful wants the famous person to be that way all the time. the famous person or whatever tries to be themself and is rejected so goes back into the lie of the only one way everyone wants them to be. They have been this person for so long it is killing the real them inside and they don't know if that person can ever be brought back...... but it matters to noone anyway.so the "convince me that i've been sick forever" part is when the true person tries to come out and they reject it and so they go back..."all of this will make since when i get better" ....everyone loves them again and "everyone" is happy again and life appears peachy. so metaphorically that person is dead and they "breath no more".

[ironica111]

My interpretation of Breathe No More is about someone who goes through life severely depressed and they have forgotten what it's like to be themselves. So they are dead inside and they keep trying to find themselves but they can't.

[yoja]

Originally Posted by Chromatone

When I hear this song, I always get a certain picture in my head...
My impression and the imaginative image I see takes place a couple hundred years ago, when a man has died, his last words are "I'll stay forever here, with you, my love." His widow is completely heartbroken and pushed over the edge from the loss of the one love she has ever known and her anchor to sanity. Every night she lays at his grave, to be with him in her own way and soon enough she starts to become deluded and feels that his spirit is there with her whenever she is near his grave, talking to her, singing to her. So there she feels as secure as she can possibly be. The townspeople begin to worry about her and question her sanity, they try to keep her restrained and whenever they release her and leave her to try and live on, she flees to the grave to be with her dead love.

That sounds like Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights

[kimboisnumber1]

I haven't written in this thread for a while... most of the interpretations were... too much alike for there to be a point for me in posting. But meh..


Breathe No More...

I think this song is very literal. As With the Lines "Lie to Me, Convince Me That I've Been Sick Forever". Sounds to me throughout the song that the person has a disease, and is dying from it. They are having a harder time than their loved ones accepting and becoming dillusional. (heh. Maybe its from the medication). It's soudns to me like the person who is sick keeps accusing their loved one of giving them a false hope (you see this all the time in movies the loved one kisses teh sick one saying "it's okay, you'll be fine" etc. while they know they won't live through it) ....It's as if the sick person wants to believe these false hopes, but still penalizes those who bestow them upon her/him....
So Basically I think it is about accepting fate. more or less.

[SoMissing]

Originally Posted by kimboisnumber1

I haven't written in this thread for a while... most of the interpretations were... too much alike for there to be a point for me in posting. But meh..


Breathe No More...

I think this song is very literal. As With the Lines "Lie to Me, Convince Me That I've Been Sick Forever". Sounds to me throughout the song that the person has a disease, and is dying from it. They are having a harder time than their loved ones accepting and becoming dillusional. (heh. Maybe its from the medication). It's soudns to me like the person who is sick keeps accusing their loved one of giving them a false hope (you see this all the time in movies the loved one kisses teh sick one saying "it's okay, you'll be fine" etc. while they know they won't live through it) ....It's as if the sick person wants to believe these false hopes, but still penalizes those who bestow them upon her/him....
So Basically I think it is about accepting fate. more or less.

nice twist...i like it its very well thought, but what about the bleeding?what do u think it resembles...? is it literal? and the line "breathe no more" does it resemble death in this case?

[punkinhead225]

I've been wanting to do this for a long time. And when I say 'Person', I mean the person who wrote the song (well in this case Amy...) but I don't like using names, so I made 'Person' a name. (yes, I made person a girl...that's because "themself" sounds like more than one person...and yeah..lol)

I’ve been looking in the mirror for so long.
That I’ve come to believe my soul's on the other side.
Person thinks that she is being someone she's not, and she thinks that she have lost the real her.
Oh the little pieces falling, shatter.
She finally doesn't want to live being someone she's not. Person doesn't want to live a lie.
Shards of me,
Too sharp to put back together.
Person knows that she can't go back to the old way she was.
Too small to matter,
But big enough to cut me into so many little pieces.
If I try to touch her,
Person thinks that she didn't matter before, but the memories of the way she was, hurts so bad inside when she thinks about it.
And I bleed,
I bleed,
And I breathe,
I breathe no more.
Person tries to be the way she was, but it hurts so bad that she knows she can't go back. With the 'and I bleed' and 'I breathe no more" comments, she may be cutting, or trying to commit suicide, but it more likely may be just the symbol of the broken glass from the mirror cutting and/or killing her.
Take a breath and I try to draw from my spirits well.
Yet again you refuse to drink like a stubborn child.
Person tries to recollect herself, but she can't. Person is talking to herself when she says "yet again you refuse to drink like a stubborn child." Person may remember a time when she was forced to fit what someone wanted them to be, and if so, Person knows that she has to do it again.
Lie to me,
Convince me that I’ve been sick forever.
And all of this,
Will make sense when I get better.
But I know the difference,
Between myself and my reflection.
Someone tries to tell Person that everything she is thinking and feeling is just in her head, but Person knows that it isn't, it's real, and it's the truth. Person knows who she is and knows that she can't go on being the lie she was.
I just can’t help but to wonder,
Which of us do you love.
The person who says that it is all in Person's head is obviously someone very close to Person. Person wonders if the person loves her for who she is, or just the lie she was before.
So I bleed,
I bleed,
And I breathe,
I breathe now...
Person is deciding to be herself.
Bleed,
I bleed,
And I breathe,
I breathe,
I breathe-
I breathe no more.
Person gives in to the person close to her, and decides go back to the lie she was before. Probably after trying to be herself, but seeing that her loved one doesn't like it, is when she decided to change back to the way she was before.
---------------
This is probably really confusing, but oh well. It was fun!! I love doing this with poetry and since lyrics are poetry this is even better-er!
--Susan

[ObsessedFan]

i think:

that ,whoever the song is about, has lost a part of themself, that they think they can only see in the mirror, where they look at there true self. So, whoever the song is about, tries to break the mirror in an attempt to free that part of themself, but in doing so gets cut from all the mirror fragments of glass and ends up dying, hence "bleed" and "breathe no more."

[ShadowWeaver]

When she looks in the mirror she no longer sees herself, but the person that everyone else sees, like the media, or the image that she puts out for everyone else to see. She even makes herself believe that this person is who she really is, sort of a flip-side of 'Farther Away'.

Then... shock horror! Her 'perfect image' that she wants everyone it see is slowly falling apart. She tries to regain her composure but as hard as she tries, people have seen the true side of her and she can't return. So the person that she had created... is dead.

She is very confused, but she realises that she does know who she is, the real 'her' isn't the one in the mirror. But then, everyone that has befriended her has done so because they think they know her, but the whole time she has been very fake, and now doesn't know if they love her really, or love the image she portrayed.

Nevertheless, she has decided to be true to herself, and let her old image die.

[chainedchaos]

I'm probably wrong, but this song makes me think of someone who has anorexia or bulimia. Just the lines about looking in the mirror, and being "sick forever".
Just my thoughts.