anonymous December 18th, 2005 04:48PM  
The song was written as an apology to a girl Rivers slept with even though she wasn't ready. Hence the lyrics:

"When I woke up today
Looked in on my fairy pet
She had withered all away
I’m sorry for what I did
I did what my body told me to
I didn’t mean to do you harm "

The connection to the opera are in the following lines:

In Madame Butterfly, the main character Pinkerton says to his Japanese lover, Cio Cio San (cio cio meaning butterfly) that he would "return when the robin makes his nest" but he never does; "I ain't never comming back".

mia91 July 3rd, 2006 08:15AM  
This song has little to do about sex, but mostly love. The song is about a guy's relationship with a girl.
"Yesterday I went outside/With my momma’s mason jar/Caught a lovely butterfly" - he found a beautiful girl.

"When I woke up today/Looked in on my fairy pet/She had withered all away" - the jar symbolises how he tried to keep her close but he only ended up smothering her until she withered away.

"I'm sorry for what I did/I did what my body told me to/I didn't mean to do you harm" - he's sorry for what he did, but it seemed so right at the time.

At the end of the song we see how he knows what he did was wrong and wishes it were different but most of all he's just sorry (this is why River's repeats I'm sorry a few times, because it's the main message he wants to get across, just that he's sorry.)