"Call Me When You're Sober" is a song by American rock band Evanescence from their second studio album, The Open Door. It was released as the album's lead single on September 4, 2006. The track was written by Amy Lee and guitarist Terry Balsamo, and produced by Dave Fortman. A musical fusion of alternative metal, symphonic rock, and electropop, the song was inspired by the end of Lee's relationship with singer Shaun Morgan as well as Lee's other experiences at the time.
"Call Me When You're Sober" peaked at number ten on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number four on the Alternative Songs chart, and entered the top ten of several Billboard component charts. It also peaked within the top ten on multiple international charts, including the UK, Australia, Italy, Canada, and New Zealand. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The song received generally positive reception from music critics. Its music video was directed by Marc Webb, and depicts a metaphorical visual, drawing inspiration from the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood".
Background and composition
"Call Me When You're Sober" was written by Amy Lee and Terry Balsamo, with production by Dave Fortman. Lee and Balsamo started working on the song during their writing session in Florida; Lee played the music she was working on for the song in her room and Balsamo was working on a very different "heavy riff". Upon hearing his guitar, Lee proposed that they mix both pieces together which led to the conception of "Call Me When You're Sober".
When Lee began writing the song's melody she initially thought that the song wasn't for Evanescence, but she expressed what she wanted to say, felt it was "fresh" for her and Balsamo wrote a "badass" riff to it. She said that when writing the lyrics, she tried to "be completely clear". With it, she felt the need to "say exactly what I was feeling for so long", describing her process of creating music as a form of a therapy that gives her a medium to express the negative things that happened in her life and allows her to "turn something bad into something beautiful".
When the song was first released, it was speculated by the media that it referenced Lee's ex-boyfriend, Seether's singer Shaun Morgan. Initially reluctant to reveal the song's inspiration, Lee later confirmed it in an August 2006 interview after Morgan's announcement that he was being admitted to rehabilitation center to undergo treatment for "combination of substances". She stated: "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. ... [The difficulties and breakup] happened sort of after I was out of the spotlight for a while and writing."
Writing the song helped Lee in the process of healing from a "painful ending to a relationship". She explained,
Lee added that she felt "brave" writing the straight-forward lyrics as she was "sick of hiding behind metaphors" in everything she had written before, and "so much of the record was about the turmoil I was going through". She was letting herself "be run down", and in the end, "had to choose happiness and health" for herself. She noted that the song was about "more than the most obvious thing", deeming it "empowering" for herself as it represents "leaving a whole world behind that was really hurting me", and "getting to the place with yourself where you're finally willing to stand up for yourself." "Sober" was also inspired by other events in her life, including people who she was working with that were "holding me down and manipulating me and betraying me", eventually leading her to make the decision to "put my foot down and walk out the door". She described the song as being "about someone in particular, but at the same time, when I was writing it, it applied to a bunch of people in my life that I was sort of severing ties with."