Sonnet 118

Song Meaning

These lyrics detail a speaker's misguided attempt to manage a perfectly good relationship. They describe a strange, almost perverse, impulse to introduce negativity where only "ne'er-cloying sweetness" existed. It's a reflective account of self-sabotage, driven by a fear of sustained contentment. The central tension arises from the speaker's proactive creation of problems. Despite being "full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness," the speaker admits to framing their "feeding" with "bitter sauces." This suggests a deep-seated anxiety, where the speaker became "sick of welfare" and sought to be "diseas'd" even when there was no true need for it. The extended metaphor of food and medicine is particularly striking. The speaker compares their actions to deliberately making an appetite "more keen" or purging oneself to "shun sickness." This vivid imagery portrays a self-inflicted wound, turning a "healthful state" into something needing "medicine" through a misguided "policy in love" designed to "anticipate the ills that were not." Ultimately, the lyrics resonate because they capture the perverse human tendency to complicate simplicity. The speaker's attempt to prevent problems actually brought "faults assured." The final couplet delivers a stark, self-indicting truth: the very "Drugs" meant to "cure" a perceived illness actually poisoned the one who "fell sick of you," highlighting the destructive nature of overthinking and fear in love.