Songfacts®:

• This is one of three Shakespeare sonnet settings on All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu. Sometimes their harmonies can be very adventurous. Spinner UK asked Wainwright if the complexity of the language influenced him. He replied: "What I found with the Shakespeare sonnets is because he was such a genius, you just shouldn't think too much - have it be more of a 'feel' situation. That's the route I took. Hook your musical knowledge onto the sonnet and just see where it takes you, and ask no questions, and you'll get somewhere."
• Sonnet 10 was published in a collection of 154 sonnets in the early seventeenth century. In it Shakespeare harshly admonishes a "fair youth" for his refusal to fall in love and have children. The actual historical identity of the "fair youth" to whom many of the sonnets were written is a mystery, but most believe it was Henry Wriothesley 3rd Earl of Southampton, or William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, who were both Shakespeare's patrons.