The Famous Song That Evanescence’s Amy Lee Initially Hated (And Still Kind of Does)

Evanescence’s early 2000s track “My Immortal” inspired countless baby mall goths and fanfiction writers alike when it was first released. It managed to reach no. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. The song was a global hit as well. However, one person isn’t really a fan of the gloomy power ballad. And that person is Amy Lee, the talented vocalist who sings the song.

Why would Amy Lee not be a fan of one of Evanescence’s biggest and most memorable songs to date? According to the singer herself, the track almost didn’t make it to the album.

In an interview with Forbes a few years ago, Amy Lee broke down why she dislikes “My Immortal” so much. She particularly dislikes one of the older demos that came out before Fallen.

“I seriously considered not putting it [‘My Immortal’] on the album, but it’s this really cool opportunity to do it again,” said Lee. “The version that I hear 99.9% of the time, I’m in a grocery store and it comes on, is this old demo that I cannot stand.”

Why Doesn’t Amy Lee Particularly Like “My Immortal”?

Lee elaborated that she found the demo version that became so popular to be juvenile, both in her singing and in the musical mix of the track. She also noted that she doesn’t feel much of a connection to the song.

[Get Tickets To See Evanescence Live In 2024]

“It’s not even a real piano and it’s me singing late at night at my dad’s work where they had a studio and he let us go in there and record and I was in high school,” Lee continued. “So part of me just wanted to rerecord it and it was just too good of an opportunity to put a new version with David Campbell’s beautiful arrangement at the top of the pile. But that song I’ve never really felt close to. It was written a really long time ago, but now it’s become this big part of our history between our fans and me and I think about the song and the way it makes me feel now. It’s about them, it’s about my relationship with our fans over the years.”

Lee’s distaste for the song is understandable. Plenty of famous musicians have avoided playing some of their biggest hits simply because they can’t connect to it anymore.

All that being said, we had to look up the answer to the only question that matters: Has Amy Lee read the infamous “My Immortal” fanfiction?

“I read I think not quite half of it, but it did have me in tears,” Lee said in an interview with The Verge. “I was laughing really, really hard at one point, just because of the nonsense.”

Photo by Travis Shinn

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