According to a San Diego Union Tribune article earlier this Spring, Lindsey admitted that this song is "vicious," but also he says he thinks it's funny, which tells me it's not meant to be taken entirely seriously. What I suspect he means by that is that the anger and taunting in it is intended to be seen as so overblown/over-the-top that it becomes a bit of a parody of the vindictiveness one can feel in the immediate aftermath of a relationship gone sour (and ended by the other person).
Out of pride, and because you don't want to believe that you wasted feelings on someone who didn't appreciate it or was just using you, you deny that real emotion existed. You reduce the relationship to nothing but the physical...you imagine yourself to know all of her secrets and turn-ons...and you hope she's never satisfied ever again!
It's not a vindictiveness that can burn at great intensity for very long, but it serves the purpose of blasting away some of the flaming hard feelings that exist initially...
Think of me, sweet darling, when everything's going bad.
Think of me, sweet darling, everytime you're feeling sad.
Thnk of me, sweet darling, everytime you don't come...
Can you feel the fever?
The fever is desire. And as with a lot of Lindsey's songs, he doesn't let himself (or the narrator) off the hook either:
I said I was going to put God away ... she's been here a while.
Living in the guest room ... I guess she goes in style.
I said I was going to put God away, but I just can't let her go...
Can you feel the fever?
Maybe he knows that there were signs the relationship was faltering, but he turned a blind eye because he succumbs to "the fever" too. "Living in the guest room...I guess she goes in style" suggests to me that she was a guest in his home but that she was not
at home there. She took advantage of what he offered to her but there was not a full commitment to a relationship from her.
What/who is God? I have a few theories:
1) He might be suggesting that he knew he was throwing some better judgment out the window ("put God away") in order to keep this relationship for the wrong reasons.
2) He might be suggesting that "she" is God...he let her (someone he shouldn't have trusted so much) affect him and some of his decisions too much.
2) He might be suggesting that sex was a ruler of sorts (God..oh God...oh God!) and it clouded some decisions.
And here is the full admission at the moment he knew that this was a relationship doomed. The "fever" kept it alive longer than it should have:
Now I lay me down to sleep in this enemy bed.
Tomorrow morning I will wake up hurting from the things we've said.
One thing leads to another, but I guess you know about that...
Can you feel the fever?
In the chorus, he's back to that ferocious stance where he begins the song. I'm not sure if he's taunting her or chastizing himself (or both) for having ever thought that this relationship was something more than it turned out to be ("our harmony was the new harmony"). But it ultimately crashed and burned. Life goes on.
'Cause nobody else is doing it.
Nobody else is doing it, no, no.
Thought that our harmony was the new harmony,
Lord, it was a little too strange...
And the band played on.
The tune was inspired by a riff from bandmate Neale Heywood on the Cradle tour. He says Anne Heche, a companion during 1993, was an inspiration for the lyrics, though he hasn't elaborated upon that at all. I think he accepts his part in this, but he's getting in his licks because he's certainly not going down alone for this.
