Infected     Brett Gurewitz's Interpretation

 

"It's about drug abuse and how he can't escape the troubles of them."

   -Mick Dundee

 

"I think the previous post is WAY off. I think that whole song is one gigantic metaphor for an abusive relationship. The metaphor that seems to best represent this is the 'I wanna drill you like the ocean' line. To me, that would imply the man wanted to consummate his relationship with the woman but in a rather abusive way. Other lines like 'I'm so distracted...I like to strike you' seem to reinforce this idea. Basically, I think the song is written from the man's perspective. He loves this girl yet he cannot stop abusing her so the love is tainted."

   -Eric Jorgensen

 

"I agree with the above interpretation, somewhat... 'stop me before I do it again....here my confession, you've learned your lesson'...says to me I hit you, I am sorry but now you know-what I am like, what sets me off, so don't piss me off. It's a pretty scary song and seems a little too intimate."

   -Excedera

 

"Mr. Brett himself has said this song is about an abusive relationship."

    -Ravnos

 

"This song reminds me of rancho del mar continuation high school when i first met Shawn.. we had second period together, which was history, and i don't know if you know what a continuation high school is but.. basically, it's where you go when you get kicked out of the main high school for some reason or another. but so he would sit next to me and listen to "Stranger Than Fiction" day after day, and the first time we met we just sat there with our desks pushed together, one earphone in his ear, the other in mine - - "Infected" was the first song we ever heard together and little did I know that nearly every word sung in it would match our relationship as the years went on.    I see it as a song about an incompatible relationship. I'm gonna use myself and Shawn as examples. as friends, we were perfectly wonderful, and have stayed extremely close for a little over two years now. just recently we both jumped into a more romantic relationship, all because we agreed it felt 'natural.' for two weeks all was bliss, and then he gradually started edging away from me. the more I listen to the song the more I'm aware of the similarities, although i haven't yet figured out who should be singing the song to who - - I'm leaning more towards me to him.    the disease is the inability to understand each other and keep a romantic relationship, and it's hard to fight because all it does is fester and eventually peak, when all hell breaks loose and no one knows what to do in confusion. Shawn has always been [and still is] unbelievably mystifying and magnetic, there's just something about him that pulls me in and I'm hopeless - - for he infects me. I give in to him in one way or another and he reacts by not being able to turn me down even though he knows that he should [i.e., the still semi-girlfriend he tells that he loves], and in the end there's usually that awkward period of time where we don't know if it's ok to touch each other, smile at each other, talk to each other, or let alone look each other in the eye - - this is the beginning of the song, speaking of trying not to break down [sometimes in tears, for me] and finding ways to fill in that silence by talking about anything whatsoever.    eventually things turn rotten as his back is being turned to me more and more, and then when he explains that he can't make it work [even though he before and I before were saying 'we can work it out' because he can't keep ignoring that his heart is in another place, that's when I get hurt and bitter.     'don't be mad about it baby' is mocking the way I'm forcing myself to feel okay, although i know that deep down inside I'm stirring so much more than he knows. explaining my situation and pleading to him to not let me do it again, not let me fall for him and be drawn to him.. for the simple fact is that I can't understand him and i never will, he's got that 'heavy lead curtain' that i wish i could drill through but know that I can't.    the last bit is throwing out everything how i feel about him - - its that i love him but not in the husband/wife committed sort of way.. but he's just so damned intriguing to me that i want to make him my king and i only wish i could be his queen, yet at the same time he's so frustratingly complex that i just want to destroy him for good [or possibly make him as jealous and fiery as he makes me] so that he won't keep me captivated.    well.. what would you expect..? he's a two-faced Gemini and I'm a loyal, passionate Scorpio. we don't mix when it comes to romance. ..however, we stay friends, and know we will forever be that way. we just can't become unattached for some crazy reason.    and at the end of our vacation holiday when it was time to go back to school and living and jobs.. 3,000 miles away from each other.. we happened to be alone in the car, driving the roads while singing "our" doom-matched song together at the top of our lungs.    'you and me have a disease.. you affect me, you infect me - - i'm afflicted you're addicted, you and me, you and me.....'"

    -Carpe Noctem