Few “love songs” open with the image of a mutilated body part: “It’s looking like a limb torn off / Or altogether just taken apart,” Ben Bridwell yelps over rippling electric guitars. “No One’s Gonna Love You” feels romantic — the atmospheric arrangement, the pained way Bridwell sings throughout. And certain lyrics, like the titular phrase, sound deceptively sweet. But this one’s complicated: The narrator seems to be still helplessly in love (“And anything to make you smile”), even with the relationship “tumbling” through an “endless fall.” Play this one for your “first dance” wedding song and scan the crowd for puzzled faces.
It's looking like a limb torn off
Or altogether just taken apart
We're reeling through an endless fog
We are the ever-living ghost of what once was
But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do
And anything to make you smile
It is a better side of you to admire
But they should never take so long
Just to be over then back to another one
And no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do
But someone,
They could have warned you
When things start splitting at the seams and now
The whole thing's tumbling down
Things start splitting at the seams and now
If things start splitting at the seams and now
It's tumbling down
Hard
And anything to make you smile
You are the ever-living ghost of what once was
I never want to hear you say
That you'd be better off
Or you'd like it that way
And no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do
But someone
They should have warned you
When things start splitting at the seams and now
The whole thing's tumbling down
Things start splitting at the seams and now
If things start splitting at the seams and now
It's tumbling down
Hard