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"Hi-Lo"
Hi-Lo
Released June 8, 2018
Length 5:07
Producers Will Hunt (Spaceway), Amy Lee
Label BMG
Chronology
'Synthesis'
"Never Go Back" "Hi-Lo" "My Heart Is Broken"

"Hi-Lo" is a song by Evanescence. It was written by Amy Lee with programmer Will B. Hunt in 2007 as a solo track and intended for Amy's unfinished solo project.[1] The song was not completed, and was later re-worked for the band's fourth studio album, Synthesis, where it is one of two new original songs. Lindsey Stirling is featured on the song with a violin solo.

Background[]

Amy wrote the song with Synthesis producer Will "Science" Hunt in 2007, which was their first collaboration ever.[2][3][4] The Synthesis tour program stated: "After 10 years in the vault it is our pleasure to finally bring this song into the light. [...] After a decade of not quite fitting in, it finally found its rightful home on this project." In a 2010 interview, Amy talked about her starting to write music again after taking a break following The Open Door tour, and said when she was doing solo work, she and Will had decided to write an original song together after they finished collaborating on her cover of "Sally's Song". They wrote the song in two days at his studio in Forth Worth. Amy said the track was "dark and inspiring", with an electro-pop style inspired by Massive Attack and Portishead, and lyrically it's "about moving on, but in a very non-confrontational, non-angry way".[5][1] She said in 2017 that the song "never quite fit" in a project and "it was never finished". She reworked it, and with an orchestra and Lindsey Stirling's violin solo it found its home on Synthesis.[6]

In an interview with Italian magazine Vanity Fair, Amy said:[7]

It's unreleased, but I'd been keeping it for ten years. It's about a love that’s been over for a while. Songs about exes are usually, ‘you broke my heart, I hate you.’ This, on the other hand, says, ‘hey, I forgave you, it’s alright. Thinking about you doesn’t make me angry because I moved on with my life.’

Amy said in a track-by-track post on Evanescence's official Facebook:

This is one of the two ‘new’ songs on the album. I first wrote it 10 years ago with [producer] Will [Hunt], it was the first thing we ever did together. We were friends who connected over our ideas on music and musical tastes, so we decided to go into the studio and spend a day or so to see if we had any chemistry, and that’s where this song comes from. I’ve loved it ever since. I’ve always had it at the top of my pile to release, but it never quite fit, it was never finished. The song is now finally home. I imagined it with strings and a full orchestra in that epic place. And it all came together. Then Lindsey Stirling played that beautiful violin solo. It really takes Will and I back to our own beginnings as collaborators.[6]

In an interview in December 2017, Amy explained how the song was finished to be included on Synthesis:[8]

"I love the song and really love the lyrics, and I knew that it wasn't quite finished for a long time. I didn't know what it needed because when we originally wrote it, we had sort of a solo vibe idea, an electronic thing in our heads that didn't ever happen. So I didn't know what to do with it, and it wasn't exactly an Evanescence song. When we wrote that crazy bridge instrumental section and then the idea of the strings coming in and giving it the depth and the emotion that was missing, then it became an Evanescence song."

Music video[]

The music video released on June 8, 2018. The layered shots were filmed by Paul R. Brown at Evanescence's two shows at the Royal Festival Hall in London, UK and the surrounding areas in the city. When the song comes to Lindsey's part, it cut to her dancing around and playing the violin. Lindsey confirmed that her shots were filmed at a studio in Los Angeles, CA.

Lyrics[]

 I don't know your heart
I don't know where to begin
But I could feel you erasing the rivers I'd drawn in

The more I stood still
The faster you were running
You don't know how it feels crawling under your skin

So far, so far away
Don't you know we could be

High or Low
You never fell beneath me
And I gave up on you, but I never forgot you

I can't be your friend
Hold your hand while you bleed
There's nothing left to give you
Nothing more I need

Time to let it sleep
Oh, the damage was real
But nothing cut me so deep, I could not heal

Don't you know we could be
High or Low
You never fell beneath me
And I gave up on you, but I never forgot you

High or Low
You never fell beneath me
And I gave up on you
But I never forgot

Reference[]


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