Album: Medusa (1995)

Charted: 2 23

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• Do be do be do do do oh
  Do be do be do do do oh
  
  I used to be a lunatic from the gracious days
  I used to feel woebegone and so restless nights
  My aching heart would bleed for you to see
  Oh, but now
  I don't find myself bouncing home
  Whistling buttonhole tunes to make me cry
  
  No more I love you's
  The language is leaving me
  No more I love you's
  Changes are shifting
  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 find myself bouncing around
  Whistling my conscience to make me cry
  
  No more I love you's
  The language is leaving me
  No more I love you's
  The language is leaving me in silence
  No more I love you's
  Changes are shifting
  Outside the words
  
  And people are being real crazy
  But we will only come
  And you know what mommy?
  Everybody was being real crazy
  The monsters are crazy
  There are monsters outside
  
  No more I love you's
  The language is leaving me
  No more I love you's
  The language is leaving me in silence
  No more I love you's
  Changes are shifting outside the words
  Outside the words
  
  No more I love you's
  The language is leaving me
  No more I love you's
  The language is leaving me
  No more I love you's
  Changes are shifting outside the words
  
  Do be do be do do do oh
  Do be do be do do do oh
  Outside the words Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 13

• Montyson from BostonI feel it's a breakup of a relationship. A great sadness there for me.
• Francis from FrankleI would like to think that this song is about the descent into madness or maybe Alzheimer's disease where the protagonist is slowly losing her mind up to the point where she cannot say I love you to someone she loves. Sad and tragic at the same time.
• AnonymousGreat article and explanation. Thx
• 1branch from From Us To The NetherlandsFor me as a child, I relate to this song as the loss of our childhood innocents, & being thrown into a world of crazy emotions. And maybe written for many (like me as a kid), whom just weren't hormonally advanced enough to relate around their peers just yet. For instance the breakdown goes as follows:
  
  -"I used to be a lunatic from the gracious days" (well I am an Aspie, and from elementary/middle school I was a social reject, and frankly a lunatic! Horrible at making friends, getting into trouble pranking, drawing pictures of horrifying images of revenge for my peers, that kind of Calvin & Hobs stuff, during those "gracious days" of my youth.)
  
  -"I used to feel woebegone and so restless nights" (by middle school, kids had socially/hormonally advanced on without me, going from their innocent childlike friendships, into to hormone induced emotional relationships. But not me so quickly, my "love" was still childlike puppy love, & I was quickly becoming lost and feeling restless as my peers passed me up.)
  
  -"My aching heart would bleed for you to see" (a boy myself, often having been labeled as being "Gay," and even though I was attracted to girls, I also was socially attracted to anyone who was still youthfully innocent and kind to me, this meant often socializing with girls or gentle guys. I wasn't ready for growing up, and my aching heart would bleed, hoping anyone would see my pain, meanwhile attempting to be invisible.)
  
  -"Oh, but now I don't find myself bouncing home, Whistling buttonhole tunes to make me cry." (Home was my world during this phase, I would ride my ATV, bouncing around the hilltops of KY, blasting music loudly like this Annie song, and later crying under the stars to songs like Fade into you by Mazzy Star, being free to be me & cry without worry of my peers watching! After my hormones started to kick in, I was still a bit lost, but it was soon getting socially serious, and time to grow up, my bouncy mental escapes, and coping mechanisms were changing.)
  
  -"No more I love you's, The language is leaving me, changes are shifting outside the words." (the innocents of our childhood and the gentle puppy love "I love you's," gone! Replaced by the countless complexities of young adulthood love languages!)
  
  -"The lover speaks about the monsters" (same as above, the language of love has different meanings, and now love speaks of monsters: lust, one night stands, unprotected sex, rape, out of wedlock, straight-gay LGBT-Qrs-tuv...)
  
  -"I used to have demons in my room at night, Desire, despair, desire, so many monsters" (yep, self explanatory, I did suffer from many of those demons during this phase)
  
  -"Oh, but now, I don't find myself bouncing around, Whistling my conscience to make me cry. No more I love you's, The language is leaving me, No more I love you's, The language is leaving me in silence
  No more I love you's, Changes are shifting outside the words!"(Eventually, full blown teenage hormones had me thinking of sexual courtship & relationships, time to figure it out, you can't just say "I love you" anymore, now it is flirt, relate, joke, smile, gaze, kiss, touch, etc., the simple & direct language of "I love you - is leaving me in silence," and oh yes it did leave me in silence, while trying to figure this all out. I was still shy, still a little scared & timid, still labeled "gay...." For much of my teenage youth.)
  
  -"They were being really crazy, But they will only come, and you know what, mommy? Everyone was being really crazy, the monsters are crazy, there are monsters outside." ( Can anyone say that teenage and college years were NOT crazy? Everyone is crazy, competition & fighting, love & sex, it is all crazy for a childlike mind, so so many monsters outside! But eventually the new words "will only come," and so will love, and so will the monsters come with it too! Can you imagine what all this would look like to a child, there are so many monsters outside! That's why we protect our children so closely inside.)
  
  Clearly the singer tries to shift her voice, hinting to echos of childlike laughter and innocents in the song... So for me, it is a song simply about the transition into adulthood, and the loss of that innocents!
  
  I love it, always will, and it still to this day takes me back to that time in my youth, for better or worse!
  
  Thank you Annie & writers!
• Luiz from PortugalIt can be a about ending a relationship. But it can be way more darker, like being molested by your mother.
• Mr. West from GermanyThis is a great song and a very excellent video. Iam from the 80s and grow up with song. Many times i come back to the video and look upon my interpretations. You could interpret this song in so many ways, so i believe it depends on the viewer which mean do he gives to the song. This song comes from the 90s but is a timeless relict which celebrates the facets of humanity, a peak of human art.
• Preston Alexander from Fall RiverI've watched this mesmerizing music video at least several dozen times...thus far. There's such rich and raw human emotion going on that it has taken me this long to even being to process what this song does for me.
  
  I will begin by stating the obvious: as a videographer, I find this video enchanting and disturbing at the same time. As a gay man, I also relate to the gender-bending of ballerinas with hairy armpits. Yet the focal point always comes back to Annie Lennox's performance, first as the woman driven to madness as well as the earlier woman shown desperately trying to make sense of the world around her, as seen and heard through the walls.
  
  I'm convinced that the older, blond male who makes the final appearance, at the end of this video - the one who removes his face mask with a tinge of disdain...he was the lover who drove Lennox to madness. Her demons were like my own, desperately seeking love but finding sex instead - always feeling as though you were the crazy one while your object of adoration gavottes with everyone else, leaving you in pain.
  
  After enough - and this point of 'enough' is different for everyone...after enough of this, Lennox undergoes a metamorphosis much like a butterfly, but in a sadly neurotic form. No more will she allow herself to give voice to another "I love You" - no more bleeding her heart in order to gain someone's affection. The tragedy is seeing this result and knowing how it happened - a tortured soul that can no longer feel love, no less seek it.
  
  Meanwhile, all around her is the ongoing parade of life; some laughing, some miserable, some beyond understanding: she has taken her place amongst them all, just another twisted soul. And the older blond man - the one who broke her, moves off stage, exiting her life knowing the game's up. He was the first victim - who knows how he came to be how he is, but Lennox is his victim now, and he realizes that she is no longer available for him to further abuse.
  
  Years earlier, I'd fallen in love with a schizophrenic. When in his "normal" persona, we had the most incredible times - but he was unstable - at any given moment he could switch into this other person who just so happened to dislike me. I was trapped in a love where I not only cared for him, I feared him, too. And there was nothing I could do to help him - my love was not going to cure him. How does one simply walk away from someone you love? No More I Love You's was what he did to drive me insane...
• Maria from Newburyport I always loved this song. The song for me is about giving up the ghost. For me the ghost is a dying friendship. It is the point when you just give up the fight hoping someone will change. The monsters are the forces in your mind telling you it’s time to let go. No more I love yous for that friend is gone. I love this song because of my friend Rich. Not because he was a friend I cut ties with but because no matter what that friendship endured. The deeper meaning for me is that we all deserve better (a Rich). This song signifies, for me, letting go. The song is bittersweet and freeing.
• James from Stratford-upon-avonThis is such a beautiful song. As Mike said it can be interpreted in many ways, and covers a range of emotions. To my mind, it's almost hopeful (or maybe neutral?), describing the ending of being in love. The craziness that you feel when you're in love, the wistfulness you feel when that passes, but also the lack of intensity of feeling, for both better and worse.
• Mike from Los AngelesThis is one of the most beautiful emotional songs/productions I have ever heard. The video is absolutely stunning. Annie's vocal performance is impeccable. Her range, tone, pitch, and emotion are second to none on this song. Stunning work by all the musicians involved - particularly by producer Stephen Lipson. Incredible detailed work. The fact that it can be interpreted by different listeners differently, and have a direct emotional impact on them is what music and art are all about. Thank you for this song and video to all involved in its making.
• Lisa from KansasThis song has always been special for me. I lost my dad in 95 to suicide. I used it as a therapist to help me through my loss. It was 3 days before my 21st birthday. I didn't understand what had happened or why. I would take my CD player And listen to the song at his grave everyday. The monsters in the song represented the monsters in my head "angry" at what had happened. Very lost feeling. The no more I love you's meant I would never hear my dad say those words again. He always told me how much he loved me. Eventually every year got better for me. Amazing song that helped me through my one of my darkest moments. Thank you Annie for putting it out there for us :)
• James from Glendive, MtI will comment. When this song first came out in '86 I never really listened to too much of that kind of music. But I have a friend who did and that's how I knew about it and the band The Lover Speaks. But then when Miss Lennox remade it in '95 I had just gotten out of the Army and it was around that time also that my marriage was dissolving. I do not know what the original band's interpretation of the song is. But for me, it was about each other falling out of love with one another. The Demons/Monsters, for me, represent the PTSD/Depression that I was unknowingly dealing with. So this song was one of the ones that really helped me grieve the loss of that relationship. It wasn't until almost a decade later that I finally got help and diagnosed. I was a Medic in a Combat Support Hospital during the Desert Storm period.
• Carrie from Roanoke, VaI can't believe nobody has commented on this song. The sighing background singers are what really make it beautiful, but the lyrics are great, too. I still hear it on the radio fairly often.

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