Friday Song: “Break In”
We are in yet another era of great female singers — Adele, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Carrie Underwood, P!nk, Brandi Carlile, and many more — not all of whom are getting the attention they deserve.
Two of these — Lzzy Hale of Halestorm and Amy Lee of Evanescence — are fronting two bands that are among the best-selling of all time.
Hale and Lee are good friends. While Hale and her band started in Pennsylvania, and Lee and hers started in Arkansas, the two met in 2012 at a rock tour named “Carnival of Madness,” and claim to have become best friends on Day 1. Since then, they have performed together multiple times.
The same year they met, Halestorm recorded a piano ballad entitled, “Break In,” for their album, The Strange Case of . . .
Lzzy Hale said of the song, the only piano ballad on the album:
Putting piano on this record took me back to the beginning of Halestorm where piano was my primary instrument for the first few years of the band. There’s an emotional thing that happens every time I perform that. It’s very close to my heart.
A modified version of the song featuring Lee appeared on Halestorm’s 2020 EP, Halestorm Reimagined. The song was recorded in 2019 with producer Nick Raskulinecz. The pair later performed a quarantine rendition of the song in May 2020 on Hale’s Internet show, Raise Your Horns With Lzzy Hale.
The song showcases two powerful singers with incredible control of their instruments, and voices that blend, entwine, and deflect wonderfully. Initially written with a romantic love interest in mind, Hale feels the song changes to one about two best-friend singers when she and Lee sing it:
. . . when we sing it together, it’s this act of unity, especially with the two of us being women and being women musicians. It’s like we have each other’s backs. And the lyrics mean something completely different . . .
Research has shown that singers in choirs and other settings where singing in unison and harmonies is important synchronize their heartbeats — a natural result of changes to their breathing rate, vagus nerve signaling, and mental focus.
So, two hearts beat as one here, as well.
What a great way for good friends to bond.
Enjoy!