Changes

}}'''"Something I Can Never Have"''' is the fifth track on the 1989 release ''[[Pretty Hate Machine]].'' It's a song about lost love and missed chances, though the true story about the song isn't widely (or at all) known. It is the first chronological song in which [[Trent Reznor]] plays a piano and is the first song in which he uses the word "fuck" ("fading fucking reminder").

This is the original album version. It begins with the decending pitch drone that segues in from "[[Sanctified]]" as the piano that dominates for most of the song creeps in. The song is notable for its ambient backing, including conflicting sounds of machinery and nature such as the buzzes, hisses and door slams that accompany the music as well as the ambience of wind and chirping birds buried far behind the "industrial noises." The song itself is fairly straightforward and gets louder as it progresses, notably Reznor's vocals which seem to grow in volume and emotion as the song progresses, the song surging up as it enters the last chorus before the ambience suddenly drops out on the last few lines, draining away and only leaving the chirping birds in the background. The "atmospheric keyboards" in the song are sampled from an unused This Mortal Coil session.