How Evanescence's Amy Lee reclaimed that infamous 'Bring Me to Life' rap: 'I'm taking it'

When you think of Evanescence, you likely think of the call-and-response chorus in "Bring Me to Life" or the brooding ballad "My Immortal." And while their widespread appeal hasn’t wavered, both have taken on new meaning for lead singer and songwriter Amy Lee since the release of the band's debut LP, Fallen, 20 years ago.

"We needed to do something to commemorate the milestone of this year," Lee tells EW. "I really wanted to preserve the moment and do the best we could to honor what's already there."

To celebrate the occasion, Lee oversaw all aspects of the diamond album’s deluxe 20th-anniversary reissue, including its remasters, acoustic sets, live recordings, and previously unreleased demos — most notably the demo for "Bring Me to Life." And though it is "already kind of close" to its final form, she selected one particular version because, she says, "It's like where we got to on our own before any influence."

Lee's relationship with the song is storied, and the differences between the demo and its radio-conquering counterpart are immediately apparent. While the finished track opens with a forlorn gothic piano and explodes into an aggressive rock opera, its early iteration is carried by twinkling synths and Lee’s staggered, almost staticky vocals before settling into something similar to the song we know today. It's "Bring Me to Life" in its electronic infancy.

"Our demos are naturally that way, even now, because the writing room is like this," Lee says while gesturing to her living room setup and music equipment over Zoom. "It's keyboards and loops and programming and whatever to get the idea going."

When the song first took shape circa 2002, back when Evanescence was still a group of hopefuls from Little Rock, Ark., with a couple of EPs under their belts, they were limited to the resources available. Lee, a classically trained pianist, recalls, "We didn't have the ability to record a beautiful tuned grand piano." Thus, techy percussion — and even a gratuitous guitar solo in the track's bridge — predated those well-known industrial power chords and orchestral strings, the latter of which Lee fought tooth and nail for, she says.

"I always saw our sound as being a combination of a film score and a heavy rock song,” Lee says. "And that all came true with 'Bring Me to Life' in a very beautiful way. It sounds like that thing that I had always imagined but didn't have the ability to do on my own."

But the most striking deviation on the demo? The song's infamous rap is gone. 

You know the one. It’s the Limp Bizkit–y interloper shouting "Wake me up!" and "I can't wake up!" between Lee’s earnest pleas for salvation, culminating in her sharing the bridge’s real estate with nu-metal huffing. But that little slice of radio-play synergy wasn't part of Lee's vision for Fallen's lead single. The band's label, Wind-Up Entertainment, insisted they bring in guest vocalist Paul McCoy to bounce (pounce?) off her singing to appeal to a wider — and more dude-bro — audience.

Obviously, the move worked in their commercial favor. "Bring Me to Life" became a mega-hit, a Grammy-winning triple-platinum track that continues to permeate through pop culture. It has the kind of chorus that's instantly recognizable no matter your age or musical creed, and it feels tailor-made for TikToks.

Lee, of course, harbors plenty of affection for the song regardless of the creative liberties others took with it, but the rap still posed a problem later: How would they perform it live? 

For a while, the group would skip the bridge entirely during shows. But then one day, Lee says, she thought, "Why don't I just do it? Why does it have to be a guy?" She began singing both parts in tandem, playing two characters in a way, which was a turning point for her. "That's been really cool and empowering, to do it that way instead of skipping it," she explains. "It's like, 'No, I'm taking it.'"

The live recordings are arguably the beating heart of Fallen's 2023 edition. Evanescence has spent the past two decades tinkering with their catalog during performances, experimenting with lengths, breakdowns, who sings what and when, and everything in between. Now, Lee says, "When I hear ['Bring Me to Life'] in my head, I hear what we do live." In other words, she's made it hers. 

But her favorite live recording on the reissue — the one they play towards the end of every show and that Lee says "feels really beautiful to have documented" — is a 2022 London performance of a song she had less of a hand in writing: a not-so-little number called "My Immortal." She pens almost all of the group’s lyrics, but that melancholic piano ballad, the third single off Fallen, came courtesy of former guitarist Ben Moody with an assist from Lee. 

She didn’t initially connect to it as much as her own work. But over the years, the crowds at shows have helped her find new meaning in the track. "It just completely became about our journey together and the life we have lived in the last 20 years, singing that song through the world in a million situations through losses and loves in my life… I know that's what other people singing it back with tears in their eyes are feeling too. It's just so powerful. So when I'm singing it, I really am singing about that."

But Lee’s emotional connection with Evanescence fans isn’t bound to just a song or two off Fallen. Listeners have reached out to her for years, opening up about how her music has helped them through hardship. She has kept every kind letter and empathizes with their senders.

"It always touches me in an especially deep place when people talk about grief and…feeling a connection to the person they lost through the music," she says. "Because that's what I feel. There's this supernatural bridge sometimes in music where it's like you can travel through time or connect to the other side with people. It's just a pure thing.”

Fallen (20th Anniversary Edition) is out today.

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