Songfacts®:

• Guitarist Mike Einziger wrote this song when he was at university before developing it with vocalist Brandon Boyd for Incubus's If Not Now, When album. He told Rock Sound magazine: "The song was written a while ago when I was at university. Brandon originally didn't like the song, but I developed it over a couple of years, and when I played it to him again he didn't recognize it as being the same song. But the essence is definitely there. As soon as the rhythm was developed, the lyrics and melodies came really quickly to Brandon, and it was something we were all excited about."
• Lyrically, the song is about the strength of love despite the confines of the 21st century understanding of it. Boyd explained on the band's official website: "'Friends and Lovers' is a song that I always hoped we would write. I do believe it is my most favorite thus far. It speaks to the heart of many of our culturally held biases about relationships and what love looks like. It combats the long held notions of love and intimacy and plainly states that Friends make the best Lovers. And that love can in fact be born of friendship and can indeed last outside of our pre-prescribed notions of what it looks like, feels like and how it endures. Movies and religion have largely defined our cultural notions of this most important of topics. And in this song it was my attempt to share a different idea of what modern love might look like."