Songfacts®:

• On this track, every song Ne-Yo hears reminds him of his lost love; it's a love song about being tired of love songs. It's also an autobiographical tale of love gone wrong. "It's about the first time I fell in love with a girl in a way that I completely screwed it up. So it was a story that I didn't have to think really hard about putting it together," Ne-Yo told Billboard magazine. "A lot of heartbreak went into that song, so that's why I think a lot of people dug it the way they did - because you can feel it."
• A female singer known as Lil' Vick recorded an answer song to this track, which is about Vick being sick of Ne-Yo's love songs. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Donovan Berry - El Dorado, AR
• The Norwegian production team Stargate wrote the music. Stargate is Mikkel S. Eriksen and Erik Hermansen. The duo met Ne-Yo by chance thanks to a faulty CD player. Eriksen told Entertainment Weekly: "He was working in the same Sony studio as us having some meeting, and the CD player didn't work, so he asked to use our room for his meeting. We had the opportunity to play him some of our music. He said later that he couldn't believe these two white guys were making such sultry music."
  
  Hermansen explained the genesis of "So Sick": "When we worked with Ne-Yo, we knew it was our opportunity to see if we had what it takes. We played him this track, and he loved it, but his management wanted him to do a totally different kind of record. They insisted we stop what we were doing and try something else. Reluctantly, we went and did another song, but by the end of the night, we were like, 'Let's go back to that first idea!' When Ne-Yo finished the lyrics and sang us his vocal idea on top of the track, we knew we had something special. That night I took a cab home at 2 in the morning and woke up my wife like, 'We've done it! We've written our best song yet!"
• This was Ne-Yo's first hit. Before releasing In My Own Words, he wrote songs for Mario, Mary J. Blige, Jamie Foxx and many others.
• Ne-Yo's record company bucked the trend and did not release this on iTunes or any other digital service until the album was released in an effort to boost sales of the CD. The strategy seemed to work, and many other record companies followed suit.
• The Hype Williams-directed video finds Ne-Yo singing in the snowy mountains while recalling memories of fighting with his girlfriend. Ne-Yo would reunite with Williams for "Go On Girl."
  
  Ne-Yo recalled to Billboard that he'd previously shot a completely different visual with another director. When label head L.A. Reid saw it he said, "This video is not big enough for this record." Then Reid called Williams and told Ne-Yo: "Let's get the big dogs in here."