Some days her shape in the doorway
Will speak to me
A bird's wing on the window
Sometimes I'll hear when she's sleeping
Her fever dream
A language on her face

I want your flowers like babies want God's love
Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come

Some days, like rain on the doorstep
She'll cover me
With grace in all she offers
Sometimes I'd like just to ask her
What honest words
She can't afford to say, like

I want your flowers like babies want God's love
Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come



Lyrics submitted by Mellow_Harsher

Track duration: 04:16


Fever Dream song meanings
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59 Comments

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  • 0
    General Comment:i just wanted to say, thank you guys who comment on the deep songs. You're so helpful! the music is beautiful, and i can enjoy it more when i really understand it!
    Flag Bbonnieon July 28, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I just read what chelsearibbon wrote and agree with that much more. Though i don't think he wants her to ask for forgiveness. I think he just wants her to open up to her.
    Flag imaginarybarson February 16, 2012   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:He loves her so much that he wants to take the relationship deeper. He wants her to feel the same way and to verbalise that intent.
    Flag imaginarybarson February 16, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Going off of what Luidge said... After reading their comment I agree that it's about someone looking up through their grave at their past loved one

    "Some days her shape in the doorway
    Will speak to me"
    She comes to his grave and talks to him

    "A bird's wing on the window
    Sometimes I'll hear when she's sleeping
    Her fever dream
    A language on her face"
    He is like a bird's wing on a window, barely noticeable but still there. He sees that she has trouble sleeping without him. She misses him a lot.

    "I want your flowers like babies want God's love
    Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come"
    He wants her to come visit him and leave him something (flowers, the typical thing to leave at a grave). He wants her so badly to come. The "or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come" could be a reference to him being depressed that he's dead - there's no tomorrow for him anymore... Or that maybe she'll join him soon and it's ever-so-slightly hopeful that she will.

    "Some days, like rain on the doorstep
    She'll cover me
    With grace in all she offers"
    The movies always show sad scenes coupled with rain. Cemeteries are sad places, so when she visits him it's bittersweet. He's happy she's there, and she's crying. Maybe her tear drops are the "rain" on his doorstep (or tomb). "grace in all she offers" could be a reference to her praying every time she goes to visit him.

    "Sometimes I'd like just to ask her
    What honest words
    She can't afford to say, like[...]"
    I think he wishes she would express her love for him still but she doesn't do it because it hurts her too much. He wants to know why she holds back.


    "I want your flowers like babies want God's love
    Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come "
    Same as the first time, of course.
    Flag Shawn7656on July 29, 2011   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:I've been reading what everyone's had to say about this song's meaning, but I still feel like most people are off track. Sam Beam uses a lot of similes in his music. Read what I think the song means:


    "Some days her shape in the doorway
    Will speak to me"

    To me that means that he reads her body language,

    "A bird's wing on the window"

    and she's emotionally wounded.

    "Sometimes I'll hear when she's sleeping
    Her fever dream
    A language on her face"

    He's awoken by her having a fitful sleep. A fever dream is one of intense, nervous excitement and he can see that she's feeling guilty.

    "I want your flowers like babies want God's love
    Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come"

    He wants her to apologize as soon as possible.

    "Some days, like rain on the doorstep
    She'll cover me
    With grace in all she offers"

    This is another simile. When it's raining outside, not just a part of you gets wet, usually your whole body does. He's saying that some days she's asking for forgiveness or mercy through actions but can't say the apology in words.

    "Sometimes I'd like just to ask her
    What honest words
    She can't afford to say, like"

    He wants her to apologize out loud.

    "I want your flowers like babies want God's love
    Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come"

    He wants her to ask for forgiveness.
    Flag ChelseaRibbonon December 05, 2010   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:Some days her shape in the doorway
    Will speak to me
    A bird's wing on the window

    "I would happen to agree with everyone when it comes to this song, its so very sad but so much can be taken from it but when i read all and read the lyrics over and listen to the song constantly i gathered one person became really close to something that really makes since and thats rinnychan as he said the guy in the song is died, while i agree with you i think this is the case, he is dead, but she is still not over the fact that he is gone, so she visits his gravesite everyday, as he is a spirit catching all this he sees her siloutte hovering over his grave and it speaks to him telling him that she is still in pain over losing him but he is unable to reach out to her,no matter how much he wants to he cant, kind of like when u see a beautiful bird on ur windowpane u want to reach for it not to hurt it but to just hold or feel it and it flies away, well its like that to him,

    Sometimes I'll hear when she's sleeping
    Her fever dream
    A language on her face

    anyone ever see the movie THE INVISIBLE this kind of reminds me of it, he is dead but basically a spirit lingering over her and he watches her as she sleeps and see that she is consumed with grief and sadness.

    I want your flowers like babies want God's love
    Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come

    babies dont want Gods' love because babies dont know pretty much anything when they are at that stage, but i agree they do need God's love he is saying he would like to have her love instead of the sadness, although he is gone he wants her to continue to love him but move on and maybe tomorrow it will come cause no one ever knows what tomorrow brings

    ":if that makes sense"

    Some days, like rain on the doorstep
    She'll cover me
    With grace in all she offers

    this is self explanatory i think he uses the rain as a metaphoric term to her tears pouring over his grave and at the moment thats all she is currently offering him and not the love he wants so he can rest in peace.

    Sometimes I'd like just to ask her
    What honest words
    She can't afford to say, like

    agian self explanatory, he is still trying to reach out to her to let her know its okay and to go ahead and speak what she wants to say, it seems she is choking back from all the tears she is conjuring up and it is leaving her speechless at his gravesite, and there are thing built up in her that she would like to express to him but she is tongue tied and lonely and doesnt think it matters cause he is gone and there is no coming back.


    All in all this song just breaks my heart and the way i broke it down to me brings me to say what i believe it reminds me of losing my bestfriend, although are loved ones are gone it doesnt mean they arent with us anymore its cliche i know but i believe all are loved ones who have left us are still around us, we cannot see or touch or feel but they can see us and want to reach out to us letting us know they are okay and they support and love us, things we left unsaid we can say them, but without speaking it, they will never know.
    Flag KenPkwyon March 20, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Sometimes I'd like just to ask her
    What honest words
    She can't afford to say

    My favorite lyrics. Really sums up that feeling you get when you know the other person has something welling up inside them but they can't or won't share it. I'm thankful such a talented songwriter put this feeling into such a beautiful song.
    Flag dredgfan77on February 19, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I think whoever hes singing about is dead. Her fever dream is death. That's why he sings about her in such indistinct terms, "shape in the doorway" or "hears" not sees her sleeping. He seems to feel her presence in a birds wing on the window or rain on the doorstep. The line "Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come" is the give away because the irony of the line points to death (like the album title). Babies don't need God's love because they don't yet know death exists and have no need for faith. I think the flowers are on her grave - the narrator is dealing with the futility of the gesture in the face of his loss. Extremely sad.
    Flag azbyon September 30, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:"Sometimes I'll hear when she's sleeping
    Her fever dream
    A language on her face "

    this song is so sweet, and beautiful. i love how it's so simple and put together, he knows exactly what he wanted to say.
    Flag ngreenie89on September 08, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:It's nearly impossible to convey how this song makes me feel, or what it means to me. I feel so intensely upon listening to it, even more intensely than normal. I've listened to this song during the most gorgeous of summer sunsets, while laying on the floor in corpse pose, in the middle of a forest...it never fails to be heart-wrenching in its' beauty. Of all the Iron & Wine songs I am wholly in love with, this one brings me closer to the situation at hand, to Sam Beam himself. He is in the room with me, singing this to me.
    As far as interpretations go--I love reading everyone elses', but don't have one myself. In my opinion, all forms of art, be it songs, paintings, or poems, mean whatever they mean to the reciever. To mean, this is a tale of irrevocable yearning and love, because those are the things I feel when I listen to it. To others, it means very different things.

    I completely agree with spwalsh--"the soul portrayed in a few notes is devastatingly beautiful." This song is devastatingly beautiful, in such a lovely, haunting way.
    Flag dntletmedownon July 31, 2009   Link

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