Call Me When You're Sober - Background and Release

Background and Release

"The song is very personal. It was very brave for me, the lyric writing, because I was just sick of hiding behind metaphors in all that I had been writing. So much of the record was about the turmoil I was going through, with choosing between happiness and comfort. In the end, I had to choose happiness and health for myself. I made the right decision."

-Amy Lee talking about "Call Me When You're Sober" with MTV News

"Call Me When You're Sober" is written by Amy Lee and Terry Balsamo, and produced by Dave Fortman. It was one of the last songs recorded for The Open Door. Lee's sisters, Carrie and Lori, perform backing vocals during the line "Make up your mind." The song was recorded at Record Plant Studios and mixed at Ocean Way Studios, both in Los Angeles. In an interview with MTV News, Lee said that the song was inspired by her ex-boyfriend Shaun Morgan from the band Seether. She added that it was also inspired by other things that happened in her life, "it was also about the people I was working with that were kind of holding me down and manipulating me and betraying me. I had to put my foot down and walk out the door." Lee further explained the song:

"I think it's impossible to hide how obvious it is. The day that our single hit the airwaves, my ex-boyfriend said he was going into rehab and canceled their tour. I haven't ever said right out who it was about, but it's about the big relationship I was in, and the whole breakup, which was really long. The breaking up and the hard stuff in our relationship happened sort of after I was out of the spotlight for a while and writing. It wasn't in any way public. I was trying to be kind of discreet about it, and then he totally came out and said he was going to rehab. It was shocking to me. It kind of made for a more interesting story."

During a 2011 interview with Spin Lee said, "It's mostly a chick anthem: 'You only want me when you're drunk. You only want me because I'm not there.' I definitely get a lot of girls who are like, 'That's my song. I assigned that ringtone to my ex-boyfriend.'" The track was leaked onto radio on July 30, 2006, causing several radio stations to play the track early and without being released as a CD single. It became available for digital download on September 4, and was officially announced and released as a single on September 25, 2006. Rumors began to surface that Wind-up chose to release the track as a single themselves, which was stated as incorrect by Lee on Evboards.com: "Wind up didn't choose this single- I did, and I had to fight for it. I love this song. Also, they didn't change anything about it. This is the way we made it. We fought over the guitar part but eventually just got the mix right."