Exodus
-Located on the album(s): "Evanescence EP" as Track #4
-BMI Work #6966937
-Length Time: 3:00
-Acoustic Version Available? [NO]
-Live Version Available? [YES] - See: Live @ Vino's May 7th, 1999.
Lyrics:
My black backpack stuffed with broken dreams
Twenty bucks should get me through the week
Never said a word of discontentment
Thought it a thousand times but now
I'm leaving home
Here in the shadows
I'm safe, I'm free
I've nowhere else to go but
I cannot stay where I don't belong
0:55 - 1:03
Two months pass by and it's getting cold
I know I'm not lost I'm just alone
But I won't cry, I won't give up, I can't go back now
Waking up is knowing who you really are
1:39-1:51
Here in the shadows
I'm safe, I'm free
I've nowhere else to go but
I cannot stay where I don't belong
In the shadows
I'm safe, I'm free
I've nowhere else to go but
I cannot stay here
Oh, show me the shadow where true meaning lies
So much more dismay in empty eyes
2:42 - 3:03
Song:
Some Things To Think About/Debate Over
-The live version of this song changes the ending:
[Stephanie Pierce:]
Here in the shadows
I'm safe, I'm free
I've nowhere else to go
But I cannot stay where I don't belong
[Amy Lee:]
Show me the shadow where true meaning lies
So much more dismay in empty eyes
[Both:]
You can't stop the fire
Can you stand to fight her?
You can't stop the fire
You won't say the words
Can you stop the fire?
Can you stand to fight her?
You can't stop the fire
You won't say the words
Note how the beginning whispers of Missing are added to the ending of Exodus. This means by 1999, that part was already written. Are certain parts of Missing older than the rest?
-Amy Lee talked about Exodus on EvThreads v1:
I get it, I loved it too. I was OBSESSED with it at the time. Its just hard because youre your own worst critic and I hear myself say "my black backpack stuffed with broken dreams" and want to shoot myself. I seriously can't listen to the verses to that song without squinting. But I don't deny that there was a magic in those early songs. Each one was so exciting to us, we were just learning that we had the ability to make our favorite music.
-Discographies make a point in saying this, although I have no idea why, but Amy played piano on this song. That should be OBVIOUS since who else was going to play it? I don't think Ben did piano on any of the songs (or did he? Did he play piano on My Immortal (Piano-Vocal) or was that Amy too?), and yeah David joined in late 1999/2000. It's just weird that they pick this song to say that. Why don't they say that about Give Unto Me or any of the other piano songs? What about Forgive Me?
-Exodus, for some reason or another, was erroneously put into the arbitrary (though now largley defunct and not-used-anymore) group called the 1997-1998 Demos with October, Give Unto Me (Piano-Vocal), and Goodnight. This "version" of Exodus has a little bleep/static on the word "back-pack" and phrase "now I'm leaving" and in other parts throughout the song. The tracklisting is usually 3:05 for the "demo."
Great song. I wonder what happened to the original 1997 demo version (That was probably the version put on the EP, but who knows?)
There are largely two theories behind this:
(a) The theory (circa 2005) from FOI Forums is that this song was a bad rip/burn when Ben tried to put the songs from the recorder onto the CD. He had to re-rip/burn the song, and the glitchy version became known as the "demo," even though it isn't different from the EP version. It would explain, I suppose, why the glitchy version was put into the 97-98 demo category. Bleep-ridden versions of songs have occured before - see Whisper (2001-2002 Demo) and Before the Dawn.
(b) The theory (more current, 2011+) from EvThreads/my conversations with DoubleA is that maybe the cleaned-up song is from a bootleg. Consider that the version we, in the EvCommunity, have of Before the Dawn has a little bleep at the word "after." If yours does NOT, then it is probably one of the cleaned-up versions that come from Bootlegs (Origin Re-Release or Le Nouveau Gothique). The same happened with Whisper (2001-2002 Demo) and the bleep that occurs 29 seconds into the song (removed in the (No Beep) version by EvBoards circa 2003). People "clean up" songs all the time. Maybe the version with the bleep on "back-pack" actually comes from the EP and cleaned up one comes from a bootleg (Ultra Rare Trax Vol 1. perhaps)? That would explain why we have two versions of Exodus, a clean one and a bleep-ridden one. Somehow, confusion over where they came from caused the bleep-ridden one to be put into the 97-98 demos and the clean one to claim it comes from the EP. This type of confusion is possible - consider rips from the Mystary CD. Before we had the Perfect Rip (as seen on EvReference), people thought all the songs were more or less perfect Fallen versions. Once we got the rip, people released songs like Farther Away had bleeps/mistakes in them. Wind-Up themselves released bleeped versions of songs from Fallen late 2002 - the song Missing (bleeps and all) was taken by people who made the Origin Re-Release and cleaned up (somewhat successfully) and put onto their bootleg. So it is possible things like this could have happened.
-The coveted spot for the "fifth song of Evanescence" would either be this song, or October, since EvLore seems to think that both songs pre-date the EP (and thus pre-date Imaginary).
THANKS to DoubleA for the lyrics and the videos are from FallenEvArmy![/b][/a]