Alone With You Here

Ari Lennox “No One”

“No One” addresses a very particular 21st century form of loneliness – looking at your phone and wondering why out of 251 contacts, not one of them wants to reach out to you. From the perspective of a depressed extrovert, that can seem like 251 people collectively deciding to reject you when you’re in need. But this isn’t really about 251 people, it’s about just one of them. Ari Lennox sings around that point – she’s trying to distract herself, to vent her frustrations to friends who don’t seem to care, but no matter what she does her thoughts circle back to the one person whose attention she craves the most. Near the end of the song she tries to talk herself into moving on from this fixation, but I don’t believe her. The sound of her voice lacks conviction, and it’s the same bitter melancholy in her tone throughout the song never goes away. If anything, it just gets more intense.

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