to then-member of the Boys' backing band, Tommy Smith, the album version is the "original version"; the alternate version was recorded because the chorus of the album version did not make sense. In an interview with HitQuarters, Andreas Carlsson confessed that the song was a play with words. According to him, "When Max came up with the original idea for the song, it already had the line 'you are my fire, the one desire'. We tried a million different variations on the second verse, and finally we had to go back to what was sounding so great, 'you are my fire, the one desire'. And then we changed it to 'am I your fire, your one desire', which made absolutely no sense in combination with the chorus – but everybody loved it!" Lyrical interpretation Many critics over the years have questioned the song's lyrical meaning, mainly the line, "I want it that way." Ben Westhoff of LA Weekly dissected the song, writing that its lyrical content "makes zero sense". For Westhoff, "Mainly, the meaning of 'that' is at issue." While analyzing the lyrics, Westhoff perceived that, "None of the sentiments in the chorus seem to go with any of the other ones. Even worse, no further explanation is given for what 'that' is." The critic assumed that in the song "someone simply doesn't like it when his lover expresses preferences, never wanting to hear when his girlfriend says she wants things in particular ways". Andrew Unterberger of PopDust also questioned the song's lyrics, writing that "the song doesn't make a whole lot of sense" and noting "the odd phrasing of the title and certain other key lyrics". Unterberger also noted that "The phrase 'I want it that way' is similarly devoid of inherent meaning, but it’s used recurringly as a kind of conclusive phrase, always calling back to those first two lines, as the song gets gradually more despairing in nature." Unterberger also found out that "The chorus would appear to be in direct opposition to the rest of the song." Unterberger concluded that the song "is about a relationship that’s troubled by matters of emotional and/or physical distance, but that the singer feels strongly enough about to keep it going just the same…until the chorus, at which point he decides that it’s not worth the trouble. No, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s still stirring, beautiful in its own