The Meaning Behind “Never Enough” by Turnstile

When Turnstile released Never Enough in 2025, the Baltimore band continued its expansion of hardcore punk. The explosive title track echoes the dream pop of their previous release, Glow On. And with star admirers such as Charli XCX and Metallica, Turnstile have certainly challenged the cliché that rock is dead. Still, “Never Enough” details deep-seated and debilitating insecurity. Here’s a look behind the lyrics.

Building Walls You Can’t Get Past

In “Never Enough”, singer Brendan Yates describes self-doubt and how often we put up walls around ourselves because of insecurity. It also hints at the idea of “self” and the running conversations people have with their own consciousness.

Running from yourself now,
Can’t hear what you’re told.
Never let your guard down,
Anywhere you go.

Regardless of good fortune or success, self-doubt remains. Use any metaphor you like, whether a wall you can’t get past or an anchor that causes you to sink, the obstacle remains impenetrable.

In the right place,
At the right time,
And still you sink into the floor.

Though “Never Enough” feels personal and direct, it echoes the larger, more existential themes of the album.

“Vastness and this idea of being a small piece in a larger universe and the fear or peace that can come from that is a theme that makes its way around the album a bit,” Yates told The Independent.

Charli XCX and Turnstile Summer

Though it’s grounded in doubt, “Never Enough” feels like a self-empowerment anthem. It acknowledges patterns of uncertainty and, against a backdrop of big riffs and hazy synths, offers a way out.

“I think I can be really hard on myself, I’m trying to figure out how to be a little easier,” Yates said. “I’m trying to get better at trusting intuition and embracing the intangible and not needing to be so hard and critical of myself because I think that can be a never-ending cycle if you do that.”

Judging by his band’s continued rise, it seems Yates’s intuition has proved to be reliable. Perhaps this is why Charli XCX proclaimed at last year’s Coachella that “Brat summer” was over. Instead, she suggested, among other things, that it could be “Turnstile summer.”

Photo by Shane Anthony Sinclair/Getty Images