What does Exodus mean?

Evanescence: Exodus Meaning

Album cover for Exodus album cover
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Exodus Lyrics

My black backpack's stuffed with broken dreams
20 bucks should get me through the week
Never said a word of discontentment
Fought it a thousand times but now
I'm leaving home

[CHORUS:]
Here in the shadows
I'm safe
I'm free
I've nowhere...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 19th 2007 !⃝

    Okay, this is about how she feels that she doesn't belong, of course.

    We've all felt it before. Your sitting in the middle of a crowded room and you start to think. Why am I here? What is my purpose? Why don't I fit in like everyone else does? Maybe I don't really belong here. Maybe I'm not even supposed to be here....

    The song takes you through a story basically.

    A girl, possibly Amy, had never once complained before about feeling out of place. She always just stayed where she was told to.
    But inside, she was screaming. She needed an escape. She needed to leave the life that deep down, she knew was all a lie.
    So she packs up her stuff into a black back pack. Which I think, is symbolic in that it represents all the blackness in her life. Throughout the years, she had been slowing stuffing her life and soul into a black hole. Hoping that someday things would get better, but instead, she lost anything that would make her even remotely comfortable where she was.

    And after she leaves, she doesn't turn back. She knows that she can't. It would cause too much confusion. And why go back when there was nothing there for her. Remember that black hole? Nobody can feel comfortable living in a life- sucking hole.

    However, she doesn't know where she is going to go. So she stays on the side lines....in the shadows where no one can see her or hurt her.....
    she doesn't know how to get along in the world without hiding.
    The shadows comfort her, and give her a reason to stay where she is.
    And where she is...is no where. She's wondering around trying to find a way to somehow come out of the dark....


    The last lines in the song were very well written.

    "Show me the shadow where true meaning lies, so much more dismay in empty eyes...."

    She wants there to be an answer for why she is roaming the earth....
    All her life, she has been a loner, she has been different from the rest.
    if the shadows are the only places she feels comfortable, then there must be some truth lying within them....if only she could find that truth....

    and when she realizes that she can't find it after all the searching, her eyes fill with dismay. They are always filled with sadness and they always will be until something changes.
    until she finds the answers she is looking for....

  2. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jun 14th 2015 !⃝

    I think the song is about wanting to run away from home because you don't feel like you belong there. The speaker (Amy?) hides in a dark place (maybe her bedroom?) in her house because she can be herself there, with no one to see her and possibly judge her or pick on her for being the way she is. She feels like she doesn't belong in this place, but she has no where else to go to, hence the "I've nowhere else to go, but I can not stay where I don't belong". She leaves her home, taking her black backpack (maybe with things that remind her of her old life) and twenty dollars with her. Two months later, either the weather is getting cold or else she's missing the warmth and love of her family and friends. Either one makes sense. She's not lost, but she is alone, and she says "But I won't cry, I won't give up, I can't go back now". I think she has an urge to go home, but she won't give in to it. She realizes that the only way to stop feeling out-of-place at home is to "wake up" and embrace who you are. I think the "Here in the shadows, I'm safe, I'm free/I've nowhere else to go, but I can not stay where I don't belong" that comes next could be her feeling like she doesn't belong out here, alone and away from home, anymore.

  3. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 6th 2014 !⃝

    I relate fully to this song in more of a literal sense. I have ran away from home a few times with a backpack and wandered the stores, wrecking my life because I didn't feel like I belonged at home or the conservative church I attended.

  4. Miss_Charlie267
    click a star to vote
    Jun 24th 2013 !⃝

    Exodus is about a girl (possibly Amy) running away from where she lives because she thinks that she dosnt belong where she is. Her black backpack (symbolizing the problems and dark life she has) is full of her broken dreams. The girl has hidden in the shadows to avoid being hurt again and she feels safe and free in the dark where she is.Simply saying, the girl cant take life in the conditions she is in and she runs away. She feels free but isnt, and she basicly a loner.

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 16th 2012 !⃝

    i think that the song speak about imagination and visualisation and the poor in a psychology dimension not in physical dimension and the true think that we can see in our mind because actually we not see things by our eyes the eyes is tool to transform information into brain who manipulate the information
    i think she want to say that you can feel love and what you need even if not there in real life by using imagination and find the inner peace instead of try to find it out side
    empty eyes in my thinking is things that we see in our eyes but in our brains

  6. anonymous
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    Jan 4th 2012 !⃝

    I think it is about a woman in love.
    They were together a considerable amount of time, and they were "happy", she loved him but too late he realized he doesn't love her and never did. No one cheated on anyone, they didn't have major fights, there just was no love there. Not his fault, not hers. It just did not work romantically.
    So, all the dreams of them together are crashed, she was the perfect girl, she tried it hard, never gave a hard time.
    So, she leaves, leaving everything behind. So, since they wont be together she leaves a love that didnt love back, maybe a job, friends, in order to heal, by herself. And it is not easy, she doesn't have a place to go because all she knew is with him, but she doesn't belong with him any more.

    And the pain doesn't go right away, but she knows better times are coming.

  7. anonymous
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    Jul 14th 2008 !⃝

    I think Exodus is of a person who left everything behind and has now realised that where she is she doesn't belong and all that she's left with are memories of her past and a broken future and she's lost but at the same time she has to move on cause it hurts too much to be around the person.

  8. anonymous
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    May 12th 2008 !⃝

    I think that this song is a story about a runaway girl. She never metioned anything or complained about where she lived or how she felt, but she still decides to leave home. In the chorus, the shadows that she mentions means the place where she is hiding, where she is safe and free. There's no one she can go to, but she knows she can not stay where she doesn't belong. She continues hiding and soon winter comes, making it cold and adding difficulty to survival. The girl knows the way home, so she knows she's not lost, she's just alone, because as I mentioned before, she has no one. But she's no going to give up, cry, and go back, because she knows there's no turning back now. Her experiance has woken her up and she now knows who she really is and where she really belongs- alone, in the shadows. I think that the lines "Show me the shadow where true meaning lies. So much more dismay in empty eyes" means that she wants to be shown something true, for perhaps she lived a life of lies and her parents only pretended to love her. If she not shown truth or is lied to yet again, there will be even more dismay in her hopeless ("empty") eyes.

  9. deadcalm
    click a star to vote
    Jan 29th 2008 !⃝

    Yeah, I think it's about running away, trying to escape the hardships of life and that being in the dark is safer but longing to belong somewhere soon.

  10. anonymous
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    Nov 8th 2007 !⃝

    Well, I've always thought it was about someones parents disapproving of all the things she's done
    "so much more dismay in empty eyes"
    sounds like my parents lol!
    that makes it fit even more :D

  11. anonymous
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    Nov 4th 2007 !⃝

    I think that the 'So much more dismay in empty eyes' could mean that her life has been filled to the brim with dismay, and her eyes may be empty because she's committed suicide. When she feels she doesn't belong anywhere, she may have 'gone into the shadows' by committing suicide. She has 'nowhere else to go but she can't stay where she doesn't belong'.
    Hope that helps your query =)

  12. anonymous
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    Nov 4th 2007 !⃝

    I think that this song is about how people can feel lost in this world. The protagonist feels lost in this mixed up world, and she feels that she doesn't belong anywhere, probably because she doesn't fit into any social group. She then performs an exodus, so she runs away from her 'home', which could just mean she runs away from everyone, and retreats to the darkness of the shadows, because:
    'Here in the shadows, I'm safe, I'm free...'
    She might feel that this is the only place she belongs, which leads from the lyric:
    'I've nowhere else to go, but I cannot stay where I don't belong...'
    I think that this song can be related to by a lot of people, people who eel that they don't fit anywhere in this crazy mixed up world. I know I can relate to it, and it is one of my favourite songs of all time, because I can listen to it and know every word is believable, because I've gone through it all.

  13. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 8th 2007 !⃝

    I know what the song means but what about the part where she goes "so much more dismay in empty eyes?"
    I love symbolism and am good at analyzing stuff but can someone help me with that one line??
    Please?
    Thanks.

  14. Chris
    click a star to vote
    Feb 1st 2007 !⃝

    I know it's about running away, but I think she doesn't want to stay at a "home" any longer were she knows she doesn't belong and knows she safer in the darkness and safe by herself.

  15. Evanescencefreak
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    Aug 17th 2006 !⃝

    I think this song is about how she's lost, and can't find herself or who she really is. And maybe she's saying that she's better off alone,where she doesn't have to face critisizm or hate. Because no matter what she does for others, they don't accept her. And she hasn't found her place yet.


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