The Fire Inside

The Fire Inside reflects the search of a lost companion and the internal struggles the singer must deal with. It's about someone who goes out on the town looking for someone from the past that he loved dearly. He's in a state of rage because only he understands how much he needs this person. On his way through town he notices the phony lovers and lines, the weak, and the "dilettantes." During this visit in town, he notices how weak people really are - "Safe in the knowledge that they tried." All the people in the clubs and the discotheques are secretly looking to fall in love but they can't find it. He is the only one who realizes this and is quite critical of them. The trip sequence ends with the line, "On to the street, on to the next, Safe in the knowledge that they tried. Faking the smile, hiding the pain, never satisfied. The fire inside."

The last three stanzas are reflection of Seger's personal situation. He screams out, "Dreams die hard and we watch them erode, but we cannot be denied the fire inside." In other words, although this is terrible fact of life, you always have the memories and the unexplained feelings that are kept raging inside: the fire inside.

Seger doesn't have a set way of writing songs, and he writes on both guitar and piano. Very often, his rockers are written on guitar, but this one was written on piano. Perhaps it's a fire thing - he also wrote "The Fire Down Below" on piano.