by The Civil Wars · 2024
The song “Poison & Wine” by The Civil Wars is about the complexity and contradictions of a troubled relationship where love and pain are deeply intertwined, making it hard for the individuals to let go despite their struggles.
This song has been Shazamed over 1,244,190 times. As of this writing, Poison & Wine is ranked 154
‘Poison & Wine’ by The Civil Wars is a haunting song about complicated love and heartbreak, sung by two voices tangled in both harmony and pain. We’re about to unpack what makes this song so powerful, so stick around as we look at its story and meaning. ⬇️
️ The mood is thick with longing—like a storm that never quite breaks—where tenderness and bitterness swirl together in every note. The song’s world feels like an empty room echoing with secrets and the echo of words left unsaid.
The chorus, “I don’t love you, but I always will,” hits like a punch in the chest, right? We feel the contradiction: loving someone so fiercely, yet denying it, or perhaps denying yourself the comfort of that love. It’s that raw confession—the kind we only admit to ourselves in the quietest hours—that makes us ache along with them, because sometimes love doesn’t make sense, and neither do the words we use to name it.
In the verses, there’s a shivering honesty: “Your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine,” and “I wish you’d hold me when I turn my back.” There’s beauty in how they admit the relationship is both remedy and wound—a paradox no therapist could untangle in just one session. When they sing, “I don’t have a choice but I still choose you,” it’s an admission that, despite all the pain, some loves are chosen again and again, even when they shouldn’t be.
The Civil Wars aren’t just telling a story—they’re letting us peek behind the curtain of love’s ugliest, most beautiful contradictions, showing how two people can be both poison and wine for each other, and how, sometimes, the hardest part is knowing you’ll always choose them anyway.
Writer(s) of Poison & Wine:
