I used to be lunatic from your precious face
I used to be woebegone and so restless nights.
My aching heart would bleed for you to see.
Oh! But now...
(I don't catch myself bouncing home
Whistling buttonhole tunes to make me cry)

No More "I love yous."
A language is leaving me.
No more "I love yous".
A language is leaving me exiled.
No more "I love yous".
Changes are shifting me outside the words.

(The Lover Speaks about the monsters)
I used to have demons in my room at night
Desire, despair, desire, so many monsters,
Oh! But now...
(I don't catch myself bouncing home
Whistling buttonhole tunes to make me cry)

No More "I love yous."
A language is leaving me.
No more "I love yous".
A language is leaving me exiled.
No more "I love yous".
Changes are shifting me outside the words.

No more "I love yous."
A language is leaving me

Ohh Ohh....


Lyrics submitted by CharmingMan

No more I love yous song meanings
Add Your Thoughts

7 Comments

sort form View by:
  • +1
    General Comment

    The Lover Speaks had the one album (same name) and this was the only [minor] hit song from the mid 80s. This song was later made famous by Annie Lennox (95), but in my view this is a far more passionately sung and arranged version.
    The band was short-lived and comprised David Freeman and Joseph Hughes. Although slightly pretentious, the music is haunting yet melodic with goos strong vocals throughout. This was by far the best song and obvious single. Didn't get high in the charts, but then the mid-80s had many strong singles. However the song and album is in my view one of the best of this period in the 80s. David Freeman went on to many solo projects and writing songs for other artists.

    CharmingManon February 22, 2006   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    to me this song means that she is totally over this person shes singing to. enough is enough (whatever it may be) and shes moving on

    Adscititiouson December 15, 2006   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    God ! when will these people understand this song was by The Lover Speaks and not Annie Lennox. Both are exceptionally sung but God ! when will these people understand this song was by The Lover Speaks and not Annie Lennox. Both are exceptionally sung but wow...my apologies Freeman and Hughes. \nMy Interpretation...\nThe first part of the song talks about how he used to be crazy for his lover. He loved her so bad that he was 'woebegone' even. However, as times changed his lover has turned away from him and he has tried hard for her to see him "My aching heart would bleed for you to see" kinda like how we do little things for them to see that we're hurting. But now, he has had the change of heart and does not sing 'buttonhole tunes'. He doesn't do things that make him hurt on purpose. For example, like us laying in bed at night listening to sad music to make us feel something. \n\nNo More I Love Yous\nHe has nothing else to say, he is over it \nThe language has left him because he has no one to say it to. I like to think that he has loved her so much, it became almost a crime to love someone so bad...so he was exiled. Events like these make us overlook love and never turn back.\n\nDesire and Despair...the monsters are feelings. Monsters and feelings scare but he isn't scared anymore. The language has left him

    radiostarmagon February 21, 2022   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Is it possible to find a copy of the original song? I tried Ares.....no luck...

    redautumnon April 09, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    it's on soulseek.

    makerson October 02, 2007   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation

    God ! when will these people understand this song was by The Lover Speaks and not Annie Lennox. Both are exceptionally sung but wow...my apologies Freeman and Hughes. \nMy Interpretation...\nThe first part of the song talks about how he used to be crazy for his lover. He loved her so bad that he was \'woebegone\' even. However, as times changed his lover has turned away from him and he has tried hard for her to see him "My aching heart would bleed for you to see" kinda like how we do little things for them to see that we\'re hurting. But now, he has had the change of heart and does not sing \'buttonhole tunes\'. He doesn\'t do things that make him hurt on purpose. For example, like us laying in bed at night listening to sad music to make us feel something. \n\nNo More I Love Yous\nHe has nothing else to say, he is over it \nThe language has left him because he has no one to say it to. I like to think that he has loved her so much, it became almost a crime to love someone so bad...so he was exiled. Events like these make us overlook love and never turn back.\n\nDesire and Despair...the monsters are feelings. Monsters and feelings scare but he isn\'t scared anymore. The language has left him.

    radiostarmagon January 21, 2022   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    The person loved someone beyond what they could comprehend, unto madness (“lunatic from your precious face”). They truly suffered and found their beloved everywhere (even in “buttonhole tunes” to try to soothe their “aching heart,” the pain of not having the perfect union or any union at all to their beloved). They were haunted by this love for a significantly long time. They were so tortured they’d be sacrificing sleep, ease, and energy just unable to exit this state of longing. Intensely, they lost themselves in love and the unfulfilled desire for their person. It’d be overpowering and endless, they’d go into despair— crying all night, maybe. Feeling like no thing mattered, wouldn’t really live since they’d be swallowed by the strongest illusions: “so many monsters.” By that he means, the way the mind fixates on another. The strong emotions associated with deep but unrequited love. The labyrinths of pain , of anguish, of memory, of suppositions, of false hope, of attachment towards something that yields no reality but totally mired his being in a long torment he stayed in because of the accompanying pull of love (and/or limerence). And now (“But now”) finally he’s been reborn, he has been exiled by “the language” of love. He is now experiencing the freedom of detachment and composure. This illusion has finally lost its hold. Just as he was intense in loving pointlessly, he is intense in the disappearance of feeling, eloquently expressed. I don’t feel it’s pretentious. He probably had 50,000 songs and poems to pay ode to an indifferent lover at 3am circling endlessly in one of these 1) unrequited love that was never returned or 2) a former lover who lost interest or 3) something similar. So he says that very language which trapped him in the web or labyrinth of thought and rumination is fading by itself now. He finds himself peaceful exiled from a feeling so intense he never thought he could be free and now has another perspective, one of change. Time passed. He finally triumphed over very stormy feelings, it’s so different from what he once felt that he can’t really understand it. Compare the mechanical analysis of how he feels now “changes are shifting outside the words” to the poetics of the past “I used to be woebegone, … And so, restless nights.” At the core, the slight perhaps almost tráceles bitterness means he never truly got completely over the person. Very introspective about the entire ordeal. He finds the new freedom still hard to believe …. But though he would have tried to cling onto the love, he is gradually losing the ability to. It’s the “language “ —aka the entire way of existing— that took the love away from him. It’s still a process in progress. He isn’t fully exiled yet. Life and thought passed. It closed its own door. He didn’t set out to get over the person he once’s loved so madly. Life had to do it for him. He is noticing how it happens in present time. “Language is leaving me exiled.” And “Changes are shifting,” right now and every day. The “I love yous” were probably endless at the beginning, even if he never said the words— words are creation and his entire world was that love and its hopelessness and other sources of anguish. Now “I love yous” he is unable to say that , the intensity and constancy do not overflow. He has found stillness and is perhaps resigned and maybe a bit indifferent, but he still writes this… to celebrate it but also to understand it, because he was so used to his old feeling. And I conclude the latter part from the ups and downs in the music. It’s up to the listener to understand whether he truly is 100% over them or what. I think in the end life passed over him, and he was fortunate to find more neutrality towards such an experience of intense, unbearable love.

    12thHouseron March 26, 2024   Link

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

More Featured Meanings

Album art
Light Up The Sky
Van Halen
The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Album art
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve. The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future. Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere" The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Album art
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988. "'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it." "There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
Album art
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
Album art
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.