This Ne-Yo's song can help someone!

Helpful song to all male players – Lonely by Ne-Yo

Who said having many girlfriends is fun? Well, it is a good and brain-exercising adventure – till the proverbial forty days of a thief act against you. Then your life will be one terrible quicksand because the ones you have been smooth operating on will begin walking out of your life, one by one. They can even exit all at once, and you can be sure to have your heart not just broken but crushed. It all depends on how you were discovered. 

But you will reckon that, even though you can have as many lovers as can make King Mswati envious, there will be a special one who has a permanent impact on your life; one who gets etched deep into your memory. Strangely, your love for her gets stronger after she has left you. If you have such a girl in mind, dedicate this song to her. Titled Lonely, it is a 4.41-minute song off Ne-Yo’s 2007 Because of You album. 

Lonely is a song sung to create the real essence of loneliness. Ne-Yo’s genius plus the beats merge to create a really ‘lonely’ song. The persona informs us he is awake at 4 am; in a taxi.  He has instructed the driver to just drive – to nowhere in particular. Even more pitiable is the fact that he is lurched at the backseat, writing on the fog forming on the cab window. 

The chorus is delivered in a haunting manner. He says he is feeling “Y-L-E-N-O-L, as I roll past you in this taxi cab / If you care at all, that means I’m lonely.” That communicates to us that he is passing nearby the gone lover’s residence in that taxi. To me, that is a sign of utter craving.

The persona further describes how he envies a certain couple he sees strolling into a bar, hand-in-hand. He poses: “There’s a couple of different people I could call right now / But the one I’m wanting don’t want ne at all right now.” Those lines reveal to us the fact that he has several girls at his disposal, though this one haunts him most.

I once overheard an adviser on love issues say that dudes with poetic mileage score highly with the dudettes. In the same vein, this song is guaranteed to win any lady over, for it makes use of witty poetics as the persona describes his state of mind to his runaway sweetheart. Sample this: “What am I supposed to do now? / Rolling around, feeling like a fool now / Cryin’ like a b* in . . .” These, to me, are meant to create a more desperate picture of him; and that will call for more sympathies. How clever! I think such are the mistari people use to be polygamous.

Dedicating Lonely communicates two things to her: (a) that you are not yourself without her presence (because she is the one who makes you feel most complete), and (b) that, however unfaithful you may seem, she is the one who takes the lion’s share of your heart. Human beings like it when they know they are driving others nuts and this song could earn you a wowing number of points (!) 

However, dedicating it also epitomizes the African man in you – unapologetic to say the least. The persona was discovered having affairs with Chanel, Tiffany, Tracy and Stephanie (listed in stanza 1). This made the girl go away. Regardless, he is not directly expressing that he is sorry. He just says he is ‘YLENOL’, i.e.  ‘LONELY’ reversed, period. Things about remorse and regret aren’t mentioned here. He even admits that he can call several other people at that moment. How African!

Loneliness and being deserted are feelings that have informed a number of songs by various artistes, among them Akon (Lonely), Mariah Carey (We Belong Together), Backstreet Boys (Incomplete), Westlife (My Love), etc. Closer home, we have Sanaa with Najuta and Matonya with Anita.