Everybody's got a fever, but is it something we all need?| MARK HUGHES COBB

Of all over-used climatical metaphors from pop songcraft — rain for tears, wind for freedom, fog for melancholia, storms for wars and heartbreak — of late it's near-impossible to think of anything but heat.

Fire stands in for lust, love, fury, passion, destruction, and, of course, doughnuts. That's my own contribution in the form of "Hot Now," which derives from Miah Michaelsen, who advised me, just days before a Crying Jags gig at the Kentuck Festival, "Hey Mark: You should write a song called 'Hot Now.' "

In about the time it took to play — 2:30 without a guitar solo, roughly 2:50 with — I did. It's not Shakespeare, but I'm still basically pleased with couplets such as "Neon lights, nylon tights/the sticky lick of sugar on a summer night."

It's a love song, naturally, about a Krispy Kreme waitress. You know how some say, about what seems an obvious concept, "It writes itself"? No. It doesn't. Folks only say that afterward, because they didn't think of or do it.

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But that song almost did. The only trick to writing a heat song is to avoid the myriad usages that preceded. You can't say, for example: "... Something inside/Starts to burning/And I'm filled with desire./Could it be a devil in me/

Or is this the way love's supposed to be?/It's like a heat wave."

And you certainly can't pen: "... It's coming closer/The flames are now licking my body/Won't you help me/Feel like I'm slipping away/It's hard to breath/And my chest is a-heaving/Lord, have mercy/Burning a hole where I lay."

And just forget topping June Carter Cash's "Love is a burning thing/and it make a fiery ring/Bound by wild desire/I fell in/to a ring of fire."

Bruce wrote "Fire" for Elvis Presley, intending it as a comeback song for the King, after watching him sweat through a performance in May 1977. Elvis died in Memphis that August, before receiving the demo. "Fire" was cut as one of 52 tracks — when The Boss lights en fuego, he's a conflagration — that didn't make it onto 1978's "Darkness on the Edge of Town." In a piano-driven incarnation, it did hit for the Pointer Sisters:

"You had a hold on me right from the start/A grip so tight I couldn't tear it apart/My nerves all jumpin', actin' like a fool/Well, your kisses they burn/but my heart stays cool."

Bruce's home Garden State swelters with hot suns beating on blacktop, on streets of fire where "I live now, only with strangers/I talk to only strangers/I walk with angels that have no place," or on Asbury Park piers where the waitress he was seeing lost her desire, and won't set herself on fire for him anymore.

Back in '73, another of those unfinished tracks, later released on a compilation, was a loosely swinging "The Fever," a jangling warmup for "The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle"'s jazz-rock "Kitty's Back in Town."

It proudly shows debts to the classic "Fever," written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell, originally a hit for Little Willie John in 1956, but covered since by virtually everyone from Elvis to Beyonce, Madonna to Christina Aguilera, the Neville Brothers to the McCoys. It's best-known for the stripped-down (just bass, spare drum kit, and finger snaps under vocals) sultry 1958 cover by Peggy Lee, who made it her signature song, adding or rewriting some lyrics, those with historical or literary references:

"Romeo loved Juliet/Juliet, she felt the same/When he put his arms around her

He said, 'Julie, baby, you're my flame.'/...Cap'n Smith and Pocahontas/Had a very mad affair/When her daddy tried to kill him/She said, 'Daddy, oh, don't you dare!' "

The "Fire" that never reached Elvis echoed Lee's lines with "Romeo and Juliet/Samson and Delilah/Baby you can bet/A love they couldn't deny/My words say split/But my words they lie/'Cause when we kiss/Ooh....Fire."

We didn't start the great balls of sex on fire, the one that ripped down the house and set beds to burning, that created mist from smoke through which you can see distantly.

When Bruce finally cut a disc polished with the kind of studio gloss radio programmers seek, "Born in the U.S.A." rolled out seven top 10 hits, including the sly "I'm on Fire," for which love is solace, release from turmoil:

"At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet/And a freight train running through the middle of my head/Only you can cool my desire."

James Taylor was one of the most successful in colliding the heat and its yang. His 1970 ballad "Fire and Rain" drew on early-life incidents including the suicide of a friend, his depression, and a stint in rehab. Carole King played piano on that recording, and later wrote "You've Got a Friend" in response to James' "I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend." A bit on the nose, Carole, but perfectly so.

Yeah, so "Fire and Rain" is almost over-the-top morose and self-pitying, but I'll bet you dollars to Hot Nows that as many 13-year-olds bled their fingers trying to pick it, feeling the flames of puberty, the heated rush of crushes crumbling into insignificance and scant poetry, as did those trying to hammer out "Smoke on the Water."

Several years back — around the turn o' the century makes it sound ancient — I met Sally, James' daughter by Carly Simon. You might more likely have heard of Ben, their son, whose musical career has seen more success than that of his three-years-older sister. But Sally was touring at the time with a full band — Ah, remember when musicians, even those without hit records, could afford that? — and promoting her solo discs, which include "Tomboy Bride," "Apt. #6S," and "'Shotgun."

I'd gotten a phone interview in advance, and found her engaging, politically aware and active, fierce and funny. And of course, she was Carly and James' daughter, so yeah I went down to meet her the night of the show at The Booth (old location), where she and the band loved being advertised under "25 Cent Beer."

You're wondering, so I'll tell you, she doesn't favor either, but somewhat resembles both. Tall, curly dark-blonde hair, dimples, rosy skin. High energy, full of joy. I'm saying she was attractive, in case that wasn't clear. Striking.

The story helped draw a crowd, as no doubt did curiosity about the offspring of musicians who created "You're So Vain," "That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be," "Nobody Does It Better," "Anticipation," "You Belong to Me," "Haven't Got Time for the Pain," and "Mockingbird." If you noticed that those are largely Carly songs, the only exception being that duet with James at the end, you're cleverer than I was that night.

My interview philosophy has long been start warm, stay there, and save controversy for the end, because if you're hung up on, at least you've still got a story. So I didn't mention her parents until we'd become comfortable chatting. She spoke volubly, but a bit more about her mother than her father. See, 'cause sometimes relationships are different, heated and cooling. That's genius observation.

So on meeting her that night, I could have talked about Carly's "Hotcakes," one of my favorites. Not only was that a happy-family album, it was cut as Mom was pregnant with her, I later learned. But that'd have meant I was not-a-fool.

Sally and band played a set, then took a break to sign discs, meet fans. She asked me to sit beside her. We'd made happy small talk outside on the Strip, enjoying the late spring air, laughing at the marquee. She seemed to enjoy hanging out.

You can hear the stupidity fuse hissing, can't you?

We meander on to legacy. Sally noted that while she'd tried to avoid using her parents' heat, she deeply admired them both as artists. At this point my nerd-self boiled over and croaked, all in a rush like Ralphie asking Santa for a 200-shotrangemodel (you know the rest): " 'Fire and Rain' was one of the first songs I learned on guitar."

And like Ralphie, immediately, the searing cringe. Oooooooh.

Sally, quietly: "Yeah. Uh. That's a good song."

Like Adele, I am entirely able to set fire to rain.

Reach Tusk Editor Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com, or call 205-722-0201.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Everybody's got a fever, but is it something we all need?| MARK HUGHES COBB