When I was in middle school we had an all-school sex education talk where the presenter distinguished between being in love and the hormones that make us feel in love. We all had a quick naïve joke of it. For the next 48 hours (which was the length of our attention span) we simply switched “love” and “hormone.” We would go around stupidly saying how much we “hormone” each other. What a dumb kid I was…
Fast forward what seems like many many years, and I am confronted with a similar reality in The Civil Wars’ “Poison & Wine”. The Civil Wars were a separately married duet made up of Joy Williams and John Paul White. And I think this song is about one of the most romantic things in a relationship – choosing to love!
The contradictory chorus “I don’t love you, but I will always will” points to the fact that love is not a feeling, it is a choice. This is emphasized later when John Paul sings “I don’t have a choice, but I still choose you.” Love is a choice to commit yourself to the other “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.” When someone says that they have fallen out of love, what they are saying is that they do not want to put the effort into the relationship anymore. It is this idea that inspires “the less I give the more I get back.”
We have all experienced what it is like for a significant other to have a “mouth of poison” saying hurtful things as well as a “mouth of wine” and other sweet sentiments. The latter is certainly easier to love… Yet they both require effort. Especially the poison… Poisonous words require a great deal of energy because the other is not able to put it in. But we must remember that sometimes the other is wishing that “you’d hold me when I turn my back.”
We can turn out back on the other because we think that we cannot be understood, or loved. Even if you think that the other “only knows what you want them to.” In reality, they “know everything you don’t want them to.” The good and the bad. There is no use in acting like the other cannot understand you. Love takes commitment. Commitment to a fellow sinner, who share the same values, to live the same dream.
At the end of the day, we all have a choice on how to use our hands in love. As Joy sings, “Your hands can heal, your hands can bruise.”
Lyrics
You only know what I want you to
I know everything you don’t want me to
Oh, your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine
You think your dreams are the same as mine
Ooh, I don’t love you, but I always will
Ooh, I don’t love you, but I always will
I don’t love you, but I always will
I always will
I wish you’d hold me when I turn my back
The less I give the more I get back
Ooh, your hands can heal, your hands can bruise
I don’t have a choice, but I still choose you
Oh, I don’t love you, but I always will
Oh, I don’t love you, but I always will
I don’t love you, but I always will
Oh, I don’t love you, but I always will
I don’t love you, but I always will
I don’t love you, but I always will
I don’t love you, but I always will
I always will
I always will
I always will
I always will
I always will