What’ll I Do

Song Meaning

These lyrics plunge straight into the aftermath of a shattered romance. The speaker faces an irreversible separation, grappling with a future devoid of their beloved. It's a raw, unvarnished portrait of profound loss and utter helplessness. The central tension here isn't just the end of a relationship, but the speaker's complete inability to envision life without it. The opening lines establish a stark contrast: a "romance that was so divine" is now "broken and cannot be mended." This finality sets the stage for the desperate, rhetorical question, "What'll I do," which echoes throughout the piece, underscoring a deep-seated anxiety about navigating an empty future. What truly elevates these lyrics is the progression of the speaker's fears. Initially, the worry is simply being "blue" when the beloved is "far away." But the emotional punch intensifies with the chilling thought of "wondering who / Is kissing you," introducing a sharp pang of jealousy and the pain of replacement. This shifts the focus from personal sadness to the specific agony of the beloved moving on, a visceral image that hits hard. The final stanzas repeat a particularly poignant image: having "just a photograph / To tell my troubles to." This detail powerfully conveys extreme isolation, suggesting that even inanimate objects offer more solace than the empty reality. Coupled with the crushing realization that "only dreams of you / That won't come true," the lyrics paint a picture of a future utterly devoid of hope, leaving the listener with the lingering, unanswered question of what, indeed, the speaker will do.