All I Never Wanted

This is my favourite song by Diana DeGarmo. I know that a lot of people hate her kind of music because it’s “pop”, but each to their own. Not everybody is going to like hip-hop or whatever is “cool” to like these days.

I personally feel that it’s about falling in love with someone that you shouldn’t love and who you’d never expected to fall for, and then losing them.  In a sense, breaking the girl who never thought she’d be broken.

“It was all a dream, So it seems to me now All the falling up into the heavens Then floating down “

This verse talks about how long ago it seems to have been since the time before she fell for him (“It was all a dream/So it seems to me now”) and how she has trouble remembering what life was like before.  In the beginning, when she fell for him, it wasn’t all that terrible for her - secretly, she didn’t mind having feelings for him (“Falling up into the heavens”).  But then something bad happened between them regarding her feelings, and things went awry (“Then floating down”).

“Was it all in my head, this premonition? When I look back its hard to tell the difference between What really happened And what I imagined”

In this verse, she’s almost doubting why she fell for him, in addition to doubting that they were such great friends as she thought in the beginning (“Was it all in my head, this premonition?/When I look back it’s hard to tell the difference between/What really happened/And what I imagined”).  Part of her is trying to convince herself that everything was terrible so that she can learn to hate him and move on.

“But it's all over now, So it doesn’t really matter Don’t know why I feel so shattered I shoulda known better You were all I never wanted, Anyhow, yeah But I sure want you now I want you now”

In the chorus, she’s trying to look at things practically (“Don’t know why I feel so shattered/I shoulda known better”) and is trying to convince herself that she doesn’t care that it’s over (“But it’s all over now/So it doesn’t really matter”).  She finds herself sort of numbly accepting what has happened and that she’s lost him.  He wasn’t someone she ever expected to fall for (“You were all I never wanted”: She never found herself wanting someone like him, or else he was everything she didn’t want to love), but after loving him and especially after losing him, she knows (and has probably known all along) that despite what she used to want, she misses him and wishes he was with her (“But I sure want you now/I want you now”).

“Well I thought I knew I was under control You would never be The one to shake me What did I know?”

This verse can relate to how she once thought that he was someone she would never fall for: “Well I thought I knew…You would never be/The one to shake me”.  Perhaps her feelings started out as what she thought was a little crush, and she thought she could get past it easily, or maybe life was just as she wanted it until she started loving him: “I was under control”.  She realizes that she was wrong (“What did I know?”) about being so under control and that he’s gotten to her a lot more than she ever would have expected anyone to.

“Well it's strange how you feel when you're so mistaken When you knew it was wrong from the start but you couldn't let it go That's why I feel so faded I'm trying to turn the pages”

This verse talks about her shock that she was wrong and that she didn’t have as much control as she thought (“Well it’s strange how you feel when you’re so mistaken”) and that all along, she knew that she couldn’t have him, but she couldn’t get over it (“When you knew it was wrong from the start, but you couldn’t let it go”).  It also describes that she’s lost sense of who she is (“That’s why I feel so faded”) and that she’s struggling to move on (“I’m trying to turn the pages”).

“I'm not coming around again I'm not going down again No hanging on No looking back There's nothing more to say”

In this verse, she’s trying to move on from him.  She’s not going to go after him (“I’m not coming around again”) and she’s not going to let herself be knocked off her feet again (“I’m not going down again”).  She has to move on (“No hanging on, no looking back”), and she’s trying to come to terms with that.  Maybe the two drifted from each other because she was hiding her feelings from him, or because she told him and things grew awkward between them, making them feel as though they had nothing to talk about anymore: “There’s nothing more to say”.  Or, perhaps by “There’s nothing more to say”, it means that there’s no question about what she has to do and that she has to move on from it.