The Lyrics:
I still recall the taste of your tears
echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears
my faded dreams of you still wash ashore
scraping through my head til I don't wanna sleep..anymore
you make this all go away [2x]
I'm down to just one thing, and I'm starting to scare myself
you make this all go away [2x]
I just want something I can never have
you always were the one to show me how
back then I couldn't do the things that I can do now
this thing is slowly taking me apart
gray would be the color, if I had a heart
come on tell me
you make this all go away [2x]
I'm down to just one thing, and I'm starting to scare myself
you make this all go away [2x]
I just want something I can never have
in this place it seems like such a shame
though it all looks different now, I know it's still the same
everywhere I look, you're all I see
just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be
you make this all go away [2x]
I'm down to just one thing, and I'm starting to scare myself
you make this all go away [2x]
I just want something I can never have [2x]
(Pre 5-12-98)
I believe what he means is that he remembers the way everything used to be. And having the one he loves. This person meant everything to him. And it was all gone. Who knows if you'll ever have that again. It's a scary thought thinking that you'll never feel as happy as that again. Or maybe never feel happy again. And the part, "You make this all go away." I think he means that this person made all of his fears go away all the anxiety and all the pain disappears. He wants to have this again. I know what this feels like because I went out with this person for five years of my life. I have an abusive father that hurt me both mentally and physically. He scared me so bad. Sometimes at the end of the school day I'd cry because I didn't want to go home to him. It was just me and him. No one else to protect me.
Then I met him(boyfriend) and he finally found out about this after repeatedly I'd come into school with numerous bruises and tear soaken. I'd go home with him some nights and sometimes stay there for days at a time. I didn't want to say anything and his parents were okay with it. I'd cry so bad and tell him everthing. Finally he broke up with me because of this one fight we had about me cheating on him. I remember everything and it hurts everytime I hear that song. I have Pretty Hate Machine and Dani and I listen to it and everytime I have to leave the room. I love the song. And everytime I think of him I am happy because I know Trent has been through the same thing. It's nice to know someone has been there before you. It's comforting.
-Kitty Andeski
(Pre 5-12-98)
Like the previous comments on this song, I have similar emotions surronding both this song and later Hurt off the Downward Spiral. I think He was hurt some how, most probably by a girlfriend when they broke up, and through this experience he felt unbelievable loss of the happiness he onced had. And may never have again.
This song has special meaning to me because 4 years ago my girlfriend, whom I loved dearly, was raped and then she commited suicide. When she took her life I lost a piece of myself, my happiness, and unfortunatly I may never feel that emotion the same way again, just because it's something I can never have.
-The Golgothan Scorpion
(Pre 5-12-98)
This has got to be the most emotional NIN song. Especially hearing it performed live. It gives me goosebumps when I hear it. When I listen to the lyrics of the song, I think that Trent has been hurt in a relationship and is feeling depressed. Everything seems hopeless. He wants the happiness back in his life. Whoever the person was, they were the most important thing in his life. He wants them to come back to him, to give him comfort (i.e "You make this all go away")
(Pre 5-12-98)
This is the song that I listen to when I feel lonely, when I dream of things I know I can never have.. Reaching for the stars that I can never touch, but still foolish enough to try... As sad as it makes me feel, it also makes me feel better.. To know that I'm not the only person in the world who dreams of such impossible things, to know that in this respect, I am not alone.. It is comforting.
I don't know if it's really what Trent meant by the song, but that's how it comes across to me.. Which I guess is the important thing in some cases. Like the song, I forget who sang it right now, but it was called Runaway Train (Aerosmith maybe?)...(I think it was Soul Asylum -me) And so many runaways returned home after hearing it...
Something I Can Never Have has always been my song.. But recently it came to mean even more to me.. It still means dreaming of the stars, wanting the impossible.. But it also means sadness, sorrow, missing someone that I loved.
I was a nanny of sorts to a 2 ½ year old girl for 3 months or so.. She was the most perfect person that I have ever known, or will ever hope to know.. On christmas eve she was killed in a car accident. I'll never forgive her father for falling asleep at the wheel, stupid druggie bastard, he has no right to be alive still. I'll never forget her or what she meant to me.. The love in her eyes when she smiled at me, the way she would laugh as she reached out for me to hold her, she was an amazing child.. And I always think of her now when I hear that song.
More than anything else in the world, I want her back.. But I know that I can never have her.. And it kills me to know this, but there's nothing I can do to change it.. That doesn't mean I can't wish that she were still alive, that I can't miss her.
I would like to dedicate this song to anyone who has ever lost someone who they cared for.. Whether it was merely a break-up or death.. To the dreamers of impossible dreams.
But most of all.. I would like to dedicate it to Pandora Li Ostlie
Born: August 15, 1995
Died: December 24, 1997
(Pre 5-12-98)
I like to think I know how he feels as well. This paragraph is just my opinion, because really, no one knows what it is truly about, except for the man that wrote it. A couple of years ago, my sister went out with this guy that totally changed my life. Everything that I am this day is because of him, good and bad. I was an empty, superficial void before this guy came into my life. When I really got to know him, I respected him and altered my very life as I knew it to become like him in every way. Then, one day he found out my sister was cheating on him, and they broke up. Two years of seeing him daily, hearing him play his guitar for me, squashed to an oblivion. It wasn't until these lonely times that i realized that I was the one that was really in love with this guy, not my sister, though she thought so. Due to problems with the police he moved to Italy with his dad for a year, which tore me up. During the time of his absence, the feelings I had for him magnified 10-fold. On the day of his return, I saw him, when he came to visit my sister. They both had some remaining feelings for each other, and we all 3 knew it. The first time I saw him over a year later, I waited till he left and busted out crying, for I knew right then, he was something I could never have.
(Pre 5-12-98)
This is one of my most favorite nine inch nails songs, because I relate to it so much, and the activities that have gone on while listening to the beutiful and touching music that goes along with it. I'll probably break out in tears while I type this, but it's worth it.
In this song, the way I see it, trent is talking about how he has lost someone special. It's like they're still there but they are gone. I have been seeing this guy for a year now, and I love him so much it hurts. He has practically made me who I am today. I see him everywhere I go. He's in my dreams. I see him, but he's not really there. He's moved away (not far, actually) but I never hear from him. He tells me he loves me, but he just doesn't show it anymore. The only time we ever talk is when I call him. but I'm sick of being the one to call him. He should call me for a change. I try to tell him, but he just can't seem to realize that he is everything to me. He has made me who I am. I need him there in my life. I feel like I'm losing him and I'm doing nothing but trying to tell him how I feel. He does nothing about it. I'm not trying to talk bad on him, but it's the truth. That's why I relate to this song so much is because Trent is trying to tell that special someone that he cannot go on without them. That persom made him who he is. I just keep thinking of all the memories I had with (Jason is his name). I go back to all the places where we've been. they are still the same, but without him there to complete it. When I think of him, I think of how I used to be. How we used to be. Now it's just driving me crazy. I cry everytime I listen to this song. Not just because I can relate so much to it, but that this is Jason's favorite NIN song, and we made love to it. That's what hurts so much, but for some strange reason whenever I get depressed I put on this song and it cheers me up. It makes you feel good when you can find such a song to relate to. It makes you realize that others can go through the same feelings and emotions. There are a ton of songs by trent that I can relate myself to. Therefore I feel so much closer to trent even though I've never even met the man. He has got to be the most beautiful and talented man I have ever seen. He's so poetic, so emotional. He's not afraid to let out his anger. I look up to him so much for that. I love you trent. Deep down inside. I'm not going to be one of those who's got to be trent's #1 fan or something like that. I just want to let him know someway that I want to thank him for bringing such wonderful music and lyrics into this world. we love you trent.
-Barbara
(Pre 5-12-98)
I can really relate to the way the Trent may have felt when we wrote this song. About two years ago after seeing a girl for over a year we decided to have sex. "Something I Can Never Have" was playing on the stereo. I know it sounds lame but we were going to wait. But by crossing that line she meant even that much more to me being my first. Well three days later she broke up with me with no reason and my world came to an end. I felt alone and isolated. We didn't talk for a long time but after a while we started talking again. Every time I see her now or hear that song I wish that she would be mine again but I know it could never happen. I sometimes wonder if Trent may have gone through something like I did. This song truely is the most emotional and depressing that Reznor has ever released. I truely want something I can never have.
-JackFrost
(Pre 5-12-98)
I feel more with -Melacynthe and Lily Silver than the other interpretations in that it is not about losing a girlfriend, but I still feel a bit differently than they do. I can't really empathize totally with any of the comments, they're all quite touching, but I've never realy 'had' anyone who really mattered much to me. More, I haven't lost, cus I've never even 'had' them. So for me, this is about wanting someone I cant have. I could
know them and be friends and all, but you just cant make someone love you. It really hurts more than any pain I've felt, mental or physical. She knows how I feel, and that she cant do anything about it, neither can I. Not even the zoloft helps, stupid fucking antidepressants. Nothing can.
(Pre 5-12-98)
This song has so much meaning to me. everything I ever work for and aquire...is shattered. In the end I am left alone in this world shedding useless tears and running from the silent monster behind me. My only refuge is this tiny razorblade hidden from my parents in a box in my room. Late at night I sit and gently and slowly slice my hands arms legs chest and stomach. Anything I can reach on my body is scarred. Call me lowlife..tell me I only do it for attention..its all bullshit. I know why I do it I know the clinical reasons and I know my reasons. I know the load about why I shouldn't, but no one understands. Its my only way out...when I hear this song I think of all I had and all I will never have. I think of what is to come and what is never to come. This is the best song by Trent in my opinion. I would love to talk to him...many want to fuck him and marry him and all of those childish dreams..I want to talk to him..he is such an amazing artist. but back to reality..no one may read this, but then someone might..and if you do feel free to mail me...thanx
(Pre 5-12-98)
This song means to me as it means to everyone else. It's saddness and sorrow and it makes me cry when I listen to it. It reminds me of the most depressing thing in my life that I have cried and screamed for for so many endless years. This song reminds me of Trent himself and how so much I want, need, and yearn to meet him. Childish thoughts though for he is something i can never have. This song also reminds me that everyone feels pain and eveyone has something that they want and can never see again or touch or hear, but somehow when other people hurt my pain subsides and my screams fade away, it's like our humanity runs in a giant cicle and when some one elses pain esculates my own disienigrates and we all want something we can never have.
(Pre 5-12-98)
I can't exactly say that I know what the song means, I (being a poet) know that different people interpret my work in so many different ways it's amazing! But, I met this guy around Halloween of 96' and we had everything in common and I did and still love him so much. The problem was he had a girlfriend, who by the way was a friend of mine that didn't know I liked him and she told me all about how she was breaking uo with him for some other guy. Point being, as he and I got closer we wrote (letters) each other alot and made up a code so his g-friend couldn't read them. In one letter he wrote some of the words to "Something I Can Never Have" and at the very bottom of the note in our "secret" code he wrote "You are that something ---- (my name)". We started going out and after a month he broke up with me because his ex started to hate me and call him crying telling him she loved him and he HAD to break up with me (this went on for two weeks and she was going out with the other guy). Ever since then the song has absolutely killed me and I imediatly break down crying every time I hear it.
-serenity
(Pre 5-12-98)
I really like what everyone has written in terms of their personal feelings for "Something I can never have", because firstly it really shows that NIN-fans are not the brutal, satanic freaks that some people would like to show us as, but that there is really a sense of hurting and so an enormous sensitivity at the bottom of the rage. Secondly, I like it because I can identify quite well with what has been said already. I don't know what Trent felt or wanted to say with the song, but for me what it means is something that happened to me some years ago when I really liked that girl, but never had the courage to actually approach her. Somehow she must have still got the message as she took me aside and told me that, although she respected me feelings, she did not love me, but that she also did not want to hurt me. It was wonderful because the way she did it, I coud somehow cope with it and this experience was an important step in me developing to be somebody more confident in the years to come.
However, with becoming more confident, something must have also gone wrong, because one of the last things she ever said to me before we saw each other the last time was that it was unpleasant to be near me.
I have developed since then, I am more confident now, but still I remember what happened then and what I've done wrong. I would like her to see what I have become to show her what she has done for me, but we lost contact. I have never felt as good with anybody as I did with her and I still dream of her, but what I hoped of her was something I could never have.
-John Gibson
(Pre 5-12-98)
I don't have a story to tell or an idea about why Trent wrote this song but I can say that when ever I hear it, it reminds me of my family and what I want that I can never have (A Good One). I am living in a foster home and This song means so much to me only for that reason.
-Hide
(Pre 5-12-98)
I think he's talking about a girlfriend, or even someone that he just really liked, but could never have. I'm sort of like Torri Leah, I sit in my room all by myself and cut myself. I don't do it for attention. I hate it the next morning when I wake up and find that I am all cut up again. I try to hide my scars because I get tired of people constantly asking me it I tried to kill myself. I never did, I've only thought about it. (Like Nietzschse once said something like - the thought of suicide is consoling, it gets one through many a bad night). I love this song because it says exactly how I feel about this one guy I used to be in love with (and still am) that I'll never have. Every time after I'd be with him, I'd go home and abuse myself more, because I felt like he was the only person in this whole world who understood me perfectly, but he never required my love. Now I haven't seen him for over a year, but I think if I saw him again I'd still be in love with him.
-the emerald muse
(Pre 5-12-98)
I feel that no matter how many people you have gone out with, there is going to be only one "love of your life". Well I had one. He was so perfect in my world yet he hurt me pretty good. I feel every word in the Something I Can Never Have song is exactly how I felt about the love of my life. I was reading your interpretations and it only made everything so fucking clear I couldn't see straight. It was like looking in a mirror of my own feelings.
-RJ
(Pre 5-12-98)
I don't think anyone could know how another feels when someone you love, sometimes more than life itself, leaves or dies. This song is the one thing that kept me alive for several months after a close friend,someone I loved dearly, died. Not the music, not the lyrics, but the knowledge that someone else has gone through the same thing and survived. They might not be able to understand, but they can sympathize with you from thier own experience.
-Abbadon
(Pre 5-12-98)
I can't say what the song is about I can just say what it means to me. About two years ago I was is an abusive relationship and when my friends found out they all went ape shit one inparticular J. He took care of me helped me deal with it he was wonderful and we started going out. I remember how he sang to me, how he held me, the smell of his hair, the feel of his skin but I fucked it up and he moved away and I haven't seen him in over a year. But sometimes I'll hear this song and I can almost taste him again, feel his touch but I can't have him any more I messed up. He asked me to marry him and I said no not because I didn't want to but because I did. Don't try and understand, I can't. He is my something I can never have
-Leba
(Pre 5-12-98)
I have a very depressing story about 'something I can never have.' I really want a BLT sandwich, but the deli that serves them has closed down. So, as you can see, I truly want something I can never have.
-the cake
(LOL! -me)
(Pre 5-12-98)
This is probably my favorite nin song. Like everyone else's stuff in this section, it applies to my life. (Sob Story) Kinda standard stuff, a couple years ago, i fell in love with this girl, really put my whole self into her. And, as luck would have it, she fucking moved about 5,000 miles away. And of course, i was fucking devastated. At first it hurt a lot. I never cry, i mean i just don't cry. When my grandpa died, i didn't cry. It's not that i think it's "unmanly" to cry, its just it don't do it. But on the day she moved, i cried myself to sleep. The real pain wasn't until after a few months, and after that. It just hurt. Totatlly enpty inside. I mean, you know when you have a crush on someone or are going out with someone, and you see them in school or around town, and you just feel great. And on a day when she's sick, or is missing class for some reason, you feel like shit. But the next day she's back. And everythings cool. Every day is like those crappy days. It hurts, and its empty. Everything got taken from me, everything was pulled out from under me. The first day of school, when i knew she was gone, i still looked for her for the first few days. After she left, i lost it. My grades dropped from A's and B's to D's and F's. That year, i became an anarchist, a misonthrope, and an atheist; after losing faith in government, society, and god. After awhile, i got scared. I mean, i would write to her and i got no response. I called her and the pre-recorded message told me that her number was the number for some mattress distributer. I started to go insane. I began to think that maybe she didnt exist, she was a figment of my imagination. I was very scared. in this place it seems like such a shame / though it all looks diferent now i know its still the same / everywhere i look youre all i see / just a fading fucking reminder of who i used to be / you make this all go away / I'm down to just one thing and I'm starting to scare myself / i just want something i can never have
Anyway thats my sad story about why i like this song. If you dont like it or if it sounds corny, too fucking bad. It's my broken dream not yours. Piss off asshole.
-anonymous
(5-12-98)
This song is truley increadible, Just look up the page and see all of these people who have been affected by it, myself included. This song reminds me of my experiences with the most beautiful girl I have ever met. She was an angel, and was the biggest sweetheart. We went out for about 5 months, and then, it just ended, with no answers to my questions why...and still, even though I know she hurt me so much, I want her...But now she is onto other guys and I'm just another poor unfortunate soul left in her path, doomed to forever dream about her, and the memories we had. Everyday, I look at her picture and remember her soft voice whispering those 3 words in my ear...and I believed her. But now that my heart is shattered, I know she is something I can never have.
(5-19-98)
I can relate to this song very much. The meaning behind this song is exatly how I feel about, well, lets call him "RAMbO." I've liked him for the longest time and we finally got to go out."RAMbO" made me the happiest girl in the world. I've never been happier in all my life. Everybody was so used to seeing me so happy, especially with "RAMbO." Then, when we broke up it felt as if he literally pulled my heart out of my chest and through it into a meat grinder. I listened to "Something I can Never Have" and cried my eyes out for hours. That week I didn't eat anything because I couldn't. I felt like throwing up everytime I saw "RAMbO."
After that people got used to seeing me depressed. Now, I feel that "gray would be the color if I had a heart." HE WAS my everything. Now, I just feel like I have nothing. Trent Reznor's songs usually cheer me up. "Hurt" and "Something I Can Never Have" are the only songs that make me cry. I also listen to Manson when I'm sad because his songs don't make me feel all depressed, except maybe for "Tourniquette." I'm still tying to cope with the pain of not having "RAMbO" and trying to move on. HE is my "Perfect Drug" because without him "everything falls apart."
-Luna
(5-20-98)
My most favorite song on the whole album. It is a wonderful piece of work and the lyrics make perfect sense. I just hope that none of this sort of thing hapeens to me. I'm still looking for that person I need, but lo, I have to wallow in my own tears and sadness. (Funny thing cuz I just broke up with some one and I don't think SHE cried. Damn. Oh well, I am at a big high school so... who knows? ^_^)
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