No One Will Ever Love You

This song is unbelievable. It just sends me away back to when I was a kid - I don't know what but the sound just reminds me of something long ago.

The lyrics are quite bitter about being dissappointed by someone who you thought had more to them than they do.

I'm a fan of Stephin Merritt's songwriting. I particularly admire his work on "69 Love Songs", where he repeatedly, playfully, and always cleverly turns the genre on its head (providing a nice triple (quadruple?) entendre for the album's title). As with other posters this song is a favorite, but I have a different take on it. I think the singer is singing to her partner who, although honest, has become too clinical and analytical in thinking and lost his/her passion for the relationship. For the singer, honesty has its place (and she realizes she'll never consistently be as honest as her partner is or may want her to be), but she can't/won't live without passion in her life. Consequently, she has engaged in behaviors injurious to the relationship that should have provoked an emotional response from her partner, but did not. The subtext is the challenge of reconciling the differences between love and passion and honesty and fidelity in a working relationship. The kicker is that it's now the singer who's exposing the marrow and, as a result, neither of them may ever be loved for their honesty. Honestly.

this song is so beautifully eloquent, i love them so so so much.

I think it's about someone who's too nice and gets walked over by various scumbags. The person singing is trying to wake them upto this and give them a bit of cynicism.

this song is about an ex who was just never quite there with you, someone who was just emotionally unavailable at their core. neither you nor your actions could never quite touch them. this is a bitter song remembering that ex.

this song is so beautifully eloquent, i love them so so so much.

this is one of their better songs, for sure. yet still very little comments. check this one out!

I was recently introduced to Magnetic Fields and this was one of the first tunes that really hit me - almost immediately - particularly since the girl who introduced them to me is brutally honest. It makes me sad to think that some people (maybe even she) believes that people will never love her for her honesty. It's a wonderful quality, especially when it's "to a fault." Maybe the truth hurts, but lies hurt more once the truth is revealed, and you could have just skipped the middle man and the added hurt of being lied too.

I've also been accused of being too nice and for not having a "sense of indignation" (almost to the exact sentence....weird.) Maybe the person is question (the person who's gone) said this to her. Maybe she's saying it to the person. It's hard to say. I think we have to assume she's saying this to the person. But it seems odd to me, because usually people who are honest have a hard time also being considered "nice" - so that's kind of confusing.

xdvr seems to be onto something, but it don't know if it's as cut and dry as all that. It's the "you're not hear to make my sad songs more sincere line" that throws on this meaning. Maybe the other person hit the singer with some truth, and like mattzillaman says, she's now bitter and she's decided to attack their honesty.

Either way, sad stuff here. Love this song.