Lithium (song)

For the music video for this song, see: Lithium (music video)

""Lithium"" The Open Door Synthesis Released February 6, 2007 (The Open Door) November 10, 2017 (Synthesis) Length 3:44 (The Open Door) 4:05 (Synthesis) Label Wind-up Records Chronology "Weight of the World" "Lithium" "Cloud Nine"

"Lithium" is a song on the second studio album, The Open Door. It serves as the second single for the album.

Background

Lithium is a psychiatric drug used as a mood stabilizer, often prescribed to people with bipolar disorder and/or mood swings, along with other mood disorders.

Amy on the meaning of the song:

"It's not literal, it's not literal about the drug for me, I've never taken lithium before. It's sort of a metaphor about numbness and happiness and sort of like, it's me looking at happiness in a negative way because I've always been, you know, kind of afraid to be happy. Like with the band and the art and everything else, it's always like I'm never letting myself break through into the happiness it seems like, because it's not cool or something. And describing happiness is lithium, it's like saying 'that's numbness, I won't be able to be an artist anymore if I'm happy,' which is hilarious because that's just not true, I'm happy. So it's like this fight within the song of like 'do I do this and get out of here and get happy or do i wallow in it like I always do?' and it's cool because at the end of the song I say 'I'm going to let it go,' like I am going to be happy."

Music video

"Lithium "music video

The music video for "Lithium" was shot in late October of 2006, and released sometime late November and was directed

by Paul Fedor. The setting has a winter scenery. It features two Amys: one lurks in a nearby body of water, and is labeled the "sad Amy"; the other is "happy Amy", who wears a white dress and serves as the main focus for the video. The two Amys struggle coexisting with each other. The video also features the rest of the band members including new member Tim McCord, all dressed in black. The archetypes used are symbolic to bipolar disorder.

“There's the me in all white and it's really wintry, and then there's the all-in-black Amy under the surface of the water of this lake in the forest. So it's the happiness and the sorrow and we're almost singing to each other, trying to figure out how both of us can work.”

―Amy Lee

Critical reception

Entertainment Weekly noted that "Addicted to love, Lee explores addiction itself" and "tortured Queensrÿche-style pain strummer Lithium. Rob Sheffield added that "Lithium" is her ode to Kurt Cobain. The Independent was positive by listing it as one of standouts and writing "his third album is wreathed in the genre staples of black-clad, mascara'd gloom, a mood best captured on "Lithium", where singer Amy Lee claims, "I want to stay in love with my sorrow/ Oh, but God I want to let it go". Canada.com claims that "Lithium" is the equivalent of Fallen's "My Immortal". Stephen Thomas Erlewine highlighted and called this song "the churning 'Lithium', which most certainly is not a cover of Nirvana's classic (that song never mentioned its title, this repeats it incessantly) -- and in their place is the epic gothic rock (not quite the same thing as goth rock, mind you) that made Lee rock's leading witchy woman of the new millennium".

Lyrics

Lithium, don't want to lock me up inside Lithium, don't want to forget how it feels without Lithium, I want to stay in love with my sorrow Oh, but God, I want to let it go Come to bed, don't make me sleep alone Couldn't hide the emptiness, you let it show Never wanted it to be so cold Just didn't drink enough to say you love me I can't hold on to meWonder what's wrong with me Lithium, don't want to lock me up inside Lithium, don't want to forget how it feels without Lithium, I want to stay in love with my sorrow, oh Don't want to let it lay me down this time Drown my will to fly Here in the darkness, I know myself Can't break free until I let it go Let me go Darling, I forgive you, after all Anything is better than to be alone And in the end, I guess I had to fall Always find my place among the ashes I can't hold on to meWonder what's wrong with me Lithium, don't want to lock me up inside Lithium, don't want to forget how it feels without Lithium, stay in love, mhm Oh, I'm gonna let it go

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