Love Is a Sickness

Song Meaning

Love is framed as a paradoxical ailment, a sickness that defies all cures. The lyrics immediately establish this contradiction, describing love as a plant that thrives on damage yet withers under ideal conditions. This sets up a central tension: the more one tries to nurture or experience love, the more it seems to decay. It's a condition that offers no true satisfaction, leaving the speaker in a perpetual state of discontent. The core conflict lies in love's inherent inability to be satisfied. The narrator laments that "More we enjoy it, more it dies," suggesting that active engagement with love leads to its diminishment. Conversely, the absence of love brings only "sighing cries," a melancholic resignation. This creates a no-win scenario, a torment of the mind where fulfillment is impossible, and longing is constant. The most striking aspect of the craft is the consistent use of oxymorons and negations to define love. It's a "sickness full of woes" yet "all remedies refusing." It grows with "most cutting" but is "barren with best using." Even the divine is invoked to illustrate its impossible nature: "Jove hath made of it a kind / Not well, nor full, nor fasting." These deliberate contradictions highlight love's elusive and destructive qualities. This lyrical construction is effective because it mirrors the frustrating, illogical experience of unrequited or unfulfilled love. The repetitive structure, particularly the "Why so?" followed by the "More we enjoy it..." refrain, hammers home the inescapable nature of this suffering. The "Heigh ho!" acts as a sigh of resignation, a sonic embodiment of the emotional exhaustion described.