"Hey Jealousy" was inspired by Hopkins' desire to get back with his ex-girlfriend Cathy Swafford, who had left him because of his drinking and cheating. Ed Masley of
The Arizona Republic describes the song this way:...[A guy] shows up at his ex's house too drunk to drive and asks if he can spend the night, a case he tries to make with "You can see I'm in no shape for driving and anyway, I've got no place to go."She was the best he'd ever had, he admits before bringing the verse to a humiliating close with "If I hadn't blown the whole thing years ago, I might not be alone." But he's not giving up just yet, heading into the chorus full of hope as he attempts to sell her on a promise of "Tomorrow we can drive around this town and let the cops chase us around/ The past is gone but something might be found to take its place".There's too much self-awareness here to win a reasonable person over ("If you don't expect too much from me, you might not be let down."). Hopkins originally included the line "you can trust me not to drink" in "Hey Jealousy", but lead singer
Robin Wilson insisted on changing "drink" to "think," having grown tired of Hopkins' lyrical references to his drinking problem. Wilson explained: Hopkins, who was dismissed from the band due to alcohol abuse before
New Miserable Experience was released, was upset that Wilson changed the lyric. When asked about the song after it became a hit, Hopkins expressed discomfort with the track, stating that he turned it off when he heard it on the radio. ==Release==