Songfacts®:

• A song with a Shakespearian level of passion, "Come to My Window" finds Melissa Etheridge baring her soul to her lover, letting her know that she will go that she will go to great lengths just to be with her. Etheridge is imploring her to sneak in through the window (much more romantic than using the spare key) so she'll be there when she gets home.
  
  At this time, Etheridge had been seeing Julie Cypher for a few years, and she was smitten. Many of her songs express her feelings for Cypher in some way, and in this case, it's amorous anticipation.
• Yes I Am was a breakthrough album for Etheridge, selling over six million copies in America and launching her to arena-level stardom. "Come to My Window" was the first single, followed by "I'm the Only One." Both songs got extensive radio play across a variety of formats and were put in heavy rotation on VH1, where Etheridge was a core artist.
  
  "Come to My Window" stayed in the Hot 100 for 44 weeks, peaking at #25 in August of 1994. "I'm the Only One" spent 40 weeks on the chart, peaking at #8 in January 1995. This made Etheridge the first artist with back-to-back singles that spent at least 40 weeks on the chart.
• Etheridge came out as gay in early 1993, and the Yes I Am album title is a reference to this admission. Her songs of passionate longing were now revealed to be directed toward another woman, but most listeners had no problem with this. Any backlash came not because Etheridge was a lesbian, but because this song and "I'm the Only One" were inescapable, each holding a spot on many radio station playlists for nearly a year.
• The black-and-white video stars Juliette Lewis, who recites some lines from the song at the beginning of the clip and in a break in the middle. In the video, Lewis plays a locked-up mental patient in various states of crazy (the following year, she would play an unhinged serial killer in the film Natural Born Killers). It was directed by Samuel Bayer, who was one of the most prolific directors of the '90s. His work includes Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Blind Melon's "No Rain."
• This won a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and was nominated for Best Rock Song. Etheridge performed the song on the telecast.
• When Etheridge recorded this song, she almost left it off the album, since she thought it was "too simple." Her friends convinced her it was worthy, and Etheridge learned a valuable lesson: simplicity can be very effective.
• Etheridge opened her set at Woodstock '94 with this song.