Jillian Rossi: How I Wrote “Fever Dream”
This song was written at the end of August 2020. I was strumming some chords on my guitar and I started mumbling lyrics over a melody about a past relationship/thing (not sure what to call it tbh lol). The chorus lyrics were the same as they are in the current version but the first draft of “fever dream” was very different melodically when I wrote it. I brought a rough voice memo of me singing this idea to the session we ended up writing the entire song in.
When I wrote this song I was newly dating my current boyfriend and I was so calm and happy all the time because I knew we were going to end up officially dating (I was right!) My mom had brought to my attention that I didn’t complain about him at all and it was weird for both of us because I usually vent to her about my relationship drama. With him, I had no drama and it hit me that what I have now is so different from what I was used to.
“Fever Dream” Cover Art: Click to Listen!
“Fever Dream” is a song about being used to liking someone bad for you rather than good. A lot of people never get over that person that is so toxic and grasp at whatever they can to hold on to them. The song has so many examples of missing things a person did even when there was barely any good. The whole concept of comparing a bad relationship to a fever dream is touching upon the fact that to me everything that person did was perfect even in ugly times because in reality that person barely gave anything. Now that I am in such a good relationship looking back on that bad one is a “fever dream” to me.
I wrote this song with my friends Maria Landi & Perrin Xthona on Zoom. The three of us met at Berklee College of Music and had been in Berklee songwriting classes together. I brought a rough voice memo and the concept of “Fever Dream” into the session and the magic began. We really took the song and turned it into something so different than what I came in with but kept the concept and the chorus lyrics. When the session ended Maria sent over a demo of her singing the song over guitar chords. We all loved the song so much and at first, I thought to maybe pitch it because I felt it was so strong and someone big could totally cut it. A few nights later I found myself singing melodies while playing piano chords and wanted to try “Fever Dream” over them because ballads are my strong suit. I sang it and, “Fever Dream” being a huge power ballad felt so right to me. I knew I had to put this one on my artist project and I'm so thankful my co-writers were supportive of me doing so. After this I was introduced to Alex Wilke through my manager Noah and sent him the most rough unmixed demo of “Fever Dream'' and he was like “oh yeah I can definitely do something with this!!” I was so nervous because back then I didn’t know how to mix anything and was afraid to send new producers such rough material. I’m so glad he saw the beauty in the song from the very beginning because when I got the first draft of his produced version I literally cried and said he couldn’t have been more on point. I had sent him 4 reference tracks one being “you broke me first” by Tate Mcrae and another being “someone you loved” by Lewis Capaldi. Alex hit every single point I made and was so great to work with. After this, the song was sent to Johnny Simmen to mix and after a few different mixes, we got the one!
I posted a few videos on TikTok of “Fever Dream” and so many people loved it. My first video promoting it had gotten 100k views and I told my manager “Wow “Fever Dream” blew up on TikTok!” We were both so excited and had our distributor get us a pre-save link and a release date ASAP. A few days later I posted another video promoting the song and that one ended up with 1.5 Million views, 450k likes, and tons of shares and comments showing love for the song. We ended up with 120,000 pre-saves before the song came out and I still can’t believe that. This song has been out for one day and has already helped me grow so much as an artist. I hope that everyone who relates to this song loves it as much as I do and as per my TikTok wants to “scream it in the car when they’re sad”. Sometimes we all need a good car cry and I’m honored so many people agree that this is the song for that!
I want to thank everyone who loves this song so much!! You got it to be the most pre-saved single on Apple Music this week!! You guys are changing my life I can’t even explain how happy and excited I am.