Lillywhite Sessions

[Deleted]

I would love to hear Perfect Dream, but what if the cool part is the part in the video and the rest of the song it's meh..? That would be devastating lol

Kinda like the twitvid of "New Way To Bleed" sounds very different from the finished product... Maybe some songs aren't released because they aren't enough or were half-baked demos.

Made of Stone, Secret Door, Swimming Home, Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing, Hi-Lo were all reworked/finished...

Idk, i just want Take Cover to be recorded as bonus track for The Bitter Truth... 12 new tracks, plus old demos reworked as Bonus Tracks

[RapturedLight]

My best friend who adores pop music told me that Carly Rae Jepsen (I think?) released an album of B-sides after the actual album. I'd love if basically every artist did that... especially Ev!

[Deleted]

May 25, 2020 18:08:20 GMT -6 RapturedLight said:

My best friend who adores pop music told me that Carly Rae Jepsen (I think?) released an album of B-sides after the actual album. I'd love if basically every artist did that... especially Ev!

We got something like that with Lost Whispers, and I absolute love that, It feels like a real album... I hope we get "The Sweetest Lie" EP after "The bitter Truth" lol

[RapturedLight]

Yeah but with Lost Whispers we basically had to wait forever for the Fallen B-sides XD

[dekrou]

May 26, 2020 5:10:24 GMT -6 RapturedLight said:

Yeah but with Lost Whispers we basically had to wait forever for the Fallen B-sides XD

But all fallen b-sides were released back in 2003-2005

[Thomas]

May 27, 2020 1:20:41 GMT -6 dekrou said:

May 26, 2020 5:10:24 GMT -6 RapturedLight said:

Yeah but with Lost Whispers we basically had to wait forever for the Fallen B-sides XD

But all fallen b-sides were released back in 2003-2005

Yes, they were released as B-sides to CD singles/as bonus tracks on Japanese editions of Fallen.

It kinda bugs me that Ev missed the opportunity to put out the Lillywhite songs on Lost Whispers. I get it that Amy is a perfectionist and all. I believe it's just a matter of finishing the songs as she said they are "unfinished recordings". In 2010 they were in the studio from February 22 to April 19, so they probably have plenty of recorded material/rough mixes.

I don't understand why Wind-up hated that album so much and Amy was censored by them and wasn't allowed to tell that they scrapped it.

Anyway, Amy said that some old unreleased songs were "revamped" and found a home on The Bitter Truth. Fingers crossed for Lillywhite sessions!! Ha.

[JohnnyScott]

Steve once told a fan that the band had made 12 songs

. We have 6 already released

Made Of Stone
Swimming Home
Secret Door
Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing
Take Cover
Hi-Lo

. Another 6 have not yet found their home

. Perfect Dream
. You Got A Lot To Learn
. 4 others unreleased songs not been name revealed

[TDS]

Wow that would have been a very diverse album !!

Edit: Another Piece of the Puzzle is maybe one of the 4 unamed songs. Also that electronic snippet with Amy, Tim and Terry in her home studio.

[arlieimperfection]

Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing definitely didn’t belong on the album lol. Ev doesn’t usually put covers on their records.

[mattthomas1992]

And Take Cover definitely hasn't been released, as much as I wish it would.

[Thomas]

May 27, 2020 17:11:12 GMT -6 JohnnyScott said:

Steve once told a fan that the band had made 12 songs

. We have 6 already released

Made Of Stone
Swimming Home
Secret Door
Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing
Take Cover
Hi-Lo

. Another 6 have not yet found their home

. Perfect Dream
. You Got A Lot To Learn
. 4 others unreleased songs not been name revealed

A Billboard article with a interview in March 2010 unveiled they were working on 16 songs at the time. However, I think - according to Steve's tweet - 12 were nearly finished until the label came in and scrapped the whole thing.

Lee says the group -- which also includes guitarist Terry Balsamo and bassist Tim McCord -- and producer Steve Lillywhite are currently recording about 16 songs and is "still working and...finishing writing here and there. Some of them aren't finished lyric-wise or writing-wise, but I really feel like it's mostly there." Some of the songs, Lee acknowledges, are compositions for potential film projects that weren't used.

There is a unnamed song Amy mentioned on EvClub that she demoed and submitted for a film's end title. She said it was probably going to be on the album. It can't be Swimming Home because it was written for Ponyo in 2008.

May 28, 2020 1:58:16 GMT -6 arlieimperfection said:

Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing definitely didn’t belong on the album lol. Ev doesn’t usually put covers on their records.

According to Amy, it was going to be included on the album:

We went ahead and finished out the song in my studio just for us, and after many late night jams with friends decided it was too cool to waste- it was going on the next album. That album was the first time I watched something I was working on totally blow up in my face.

Don't forget that Tourniquet is a cover and it was put on Fallen.

[RapturedLight]

May 27, 2020 1:20:41 GMT -6 dekrou said:

May 26, 2020 5:10:24 GMT -6 RapturedLight said:

Yeah but with Lost Whispers we basically had to wait forever for the Fallen B-sides XD

But all fallen b-sides were released back in 2003-2005

You had to go out of your way to get them though between singles and different editions of Fallen. That's the whole reason I started collecting singles, but not everyone's up for that.

[Thomas]

I was just wondering if the band would rearrange the older songs to fit into this "electronic era" on their live set like Björk does with each of her eras. For example, her latest album is focused on flutes, so when she played her older songs on the last tour she rearranged them with flutes. You know what I mean? Ev used electronic drums on the 2009 shows. You can feel a different feel to the beats in some songs.



I was going through some old archives when I used to have a Ev fansite, and Amy talked about these sessions (though we know the truth about the label scrapping the album and she was being censored by saying Lillywhite wasn't the right fit and all):

He wasn’t the right person for the album. It helped us work harder on the record because we were constantly fighting with our label who didn’t really understand what we wanted to do - they never did. It was hard to get rid of Steve, but I know we made the right decision when he said okay, then we entered the studio and started over with another producer because it didn’t work out. But I’m very proud of what we did with the new producer, Nick Raskulinecz, I really think we got our best record. (Interview in Hungarian in June 2012)

Interview with Mexican website in January 2012:

You first started working with Steve Lillywhite and you described that material as very electronic, influenced by Portishead and Massive Attack. Then you changed the producer, did any of that original material end up being on the album?

We couldn't use them for contract reasons, but we re-recorded some things. There are songs that we'd started working on during those sessions that did end up on the album. We added many things to it, we had a lot of work to do and we entered the studio too early. I think that was what happened in the beginning. You can still hear various electronic elements on the album, but by analyzing it and adding more stuff, it ended up sounding much more rock than it did in the first sessions.

When the digital single of LiP came out, Amy said she wasn't aware of it and didn't agree with the inclusion of live versions of LiP and MI, saying she'd rather releasing new music, which Wind-up didn't allow her to put out. So the Lillywhite sessions were pretty much finished, though she said in 2015 that they're unfinished? Maybe they need some mastering and then they're done? Well, it's been a decade now and Amy/band were in a different creative headspace then.

I'd never pay something for a single featuring the single song only. I would've focused on new music. Recently, they don't ask me if I can release them or not. Simply, they release whatever shit they want.

It seems the album was still going in the electronic direction by late 2010, given Will Hunt's comments:

“It’s always going to sound like Evanescence, ’cause it’s Amy Lee singing, but the vehicle for that voice can be different and still be Evanescence,” he said.

Hunt added that the band has experimented with electronic textures. “There are new colors in the pattern,” he said. “There’s a lot of cool new things going on, both electronically and futuristically. I think she’s doing something that’s very special and hasn’t been done before. I’m a supporter. I think it’s killer.”

[Deleted]

I have a lot to say...

Since the preview of Perfect Dream I have idealize all about that era or the Broken-Record songs. I'm gonna list what we have:

1. Made Of Stone (released on Evanescence)
2. Swimming Home (released on Evanescence)
3. Secret Door (released on Evanescence)
4. Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing (released on Recover Vol 1, Amy Lee)
5. Hi-Lo (Released on Synthesis)
6. Take Cover (Released on The Bitter Truth)
7. Yeah Right (Released on The Bitter Truth)
8. Feeding The Dark (Released on The Bitter Truth)

Something it's weird here to me. There's a bunch of sassy songs and others are very emotional. I can't figure out how this songs can work together in one album, but in another hand, the mix of electronic and rock elements are perfect, it takes Evanescence away from classical elements and put them in a new paradigm full of electronics making them sound modern and fresh but without losing their musical identity.

To this day I'm pretty sure a lot of EvFans will let this era die when Amy finally decides to release Perfect Dream, and tbh I don't think that will happen, as Your Love, I think it was sent to the Recycle Bin too.

I think the attachment some fans (ME!) have with this era it's because it brings the same mystery and emotion that Evanescence had on Pre-Fallen years, knowing that there are some songs we haven't heard (and probably never will hear), a very raw work full of dreams, something that's very intimate to Amy and the band, waiting to be rediscover, waiting to be put out.

[Thomas]

Mar 19, 2021 11:35:42 GMT -6 @cosmixplorer said:

I have a lot to say...

Since the preview of Perfect Dream I have idealize all about that era or the Broken-Record songs. I'm gonna list what we have:

1. Made Of Stone (released on Evanescence)
2. Swimming Home (released on Evanescence)
3. Secret Door (released on Evanescence)
4. Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing (released on Recover Vol 1, Amy Lee)
5. Hi-Lo (Released on Synthesis)
6. Take Cover (Released on The Bitter Truth)
7. Yeah Right (Released on The Bitter Truth)

Something it's weird here to me. There's a bunch of sassy songs and others are very emotional. I can't figure out how this songs can work together in one album, but in another hand, the mix of electronic and rock elements are perfect, it takes Evanescence away from classical elements and put them in a new paradigm full of electronics making them sound modern and fresh but without losing their musical identity.

To this day I'm pretty sure a lot of EvFans will let this era die when Amy finally decides to release Perfect Dream, and tbh I don't think that will happen, as Your Love, I think it was sent to the Recycle Bin too.

I think the attachment some fans (ME!) have with this era it's because it brings the same mystery and emotion that Evanescence had on Pre-Fallen years, knowing that there are some songs we haven't heard (and probably never will hear), a very raw work full of dreams, something that's very intimate to Amy and the band, waiting to be rediscover, waiting to be put out.

It seems that it was going to be a very diverse album when it came to lyrical content, apart from the industrial/electro-pop/electronica direction. Lillywhite said it was a combination of synths with real instruments.

This is what Amy said to Spin in March 2010

I write about what I’m going through at the time. There are moments of, “Hey, I’m over it and I’m good” and others of fun sarcasm like, “Hey, everything’s not the most dramatic thing in the world.” But it gets really, really, really deep in places, too. That’s probably why it’s been really hard to pick an album title. [Laughs] But lyrically, it’s a more real version of myself. I’m saying things that I would’ve been afraid to say before. I’m more confident and more comfortable.

The "sarcastic agression" that was mentioned in another interview from that time makes more sense now that Yeah Right and Take Cover saw the light of day. It actually meant "sassy."


The album's inspirations as pointed out by Amy on Twitter:

Some inspirations: unknown worlds, the ocean's abyss, life within dreams, strength, detachment, love and liars...

Life within dreams is obviously a reference to Secret Door and perhaps Perfect Dream. Ocean's abyss is Swimming Home. Detachment/strength is Made of Stone, Take Cover and Yeah Right.

You Got a Lot to Learn is a real good title. This is one of the songs I was excited about.

I'm sure that the Lillywhite sessions will be put to rest when (or if) Perfect Dream is released. I've been hyped about this song for a decade now. It sucks that Amy hyped us about it when she posted that twitvid, but it wasn't her fault that Wind-up scrapped the whole thing.

I remember all those 2011-2012 interviews where Amy said it was her decision to can the album and how it didn't feel right and in 2015 she told us how much she really loved that album. I wonder, why wasn't she allowed to tell the truth about what really happened with that album? Why did it matter that Wind-up didn't like it and why didn't they want anyone to know that? It must have been so hard for her to lie about it.