Love Is Not Enough

Album:With Teeth

Length:3:41

Tempo:123 BPM

Versions:Love Is Not Enough
Love Is Not Enough (Instrumental)
Love Is Not Enough (Live At Rehearsals)
Love Is Not Enough (Beside You In Time)

Live:Live: With Teeth through Lights In The Sky Tour
NIN 2022

"Love Is Not Enough" is the fifth track on With Teeth. It was the first song Trent Reznor wrote for that album.[1] It is sometimes referred to by its acronym LINE, though this may be confused with "The Line Begins to Blur." There is speculation that the title of the song comes from dialog in episode 27 (aka "The Path To The Black Lodge") of Twin Peaks. According to the US Copyright Office, the song had a working title of "The Clamp".[2]

Appearances

Halos

• With Teeth
• Only
• Beside You In Time

Versions

Love Is Not Enough

This is the original album version. Beginning with a simple drum loop as the synthesizer's delay effect from the end of "The Hand That Feeds" fades away, a tom and bass drum pattern in a different drum loop soon enter on top. A loud, distorted verse bassline and vocals soon enter. A distorted guitar riff enters halfway through this verse, which then opens up into the chorus with more prominent guitars. Reznor's vocals in the choruses mark one of the first occasions he would add extra-lyrical "words," specifically "hey," in between the lyrics, a technique he would go on to use quite often in many songs on ensuing tours. A bridge featuring loud melodic guitar follows the second chorus, which resolves into a quieter denouement with repeated high register wordless background vocals. The song soon ends as suddenly as it began.

Love Is Not Enough (Instrumental)

Released exclusively through Apple Music.

Love Is Not Enough (Live At Rehearsals)

This version appears as audio only on the Only single and as a video DVD extra on Beside You In Time. It and all subsequent live performances of the song use new percussion loops during the introduction and through the entire song, often a consistent pulse with the secondary drum loop on top.

Love Is Not Enough (Beside You In Time)

A live performance video on Beside You In Time, this is the opening track. It ends with Reznor shouting the song title.

Song Credits

• Writing: Trent Reznor
• Performance: Alessandro Cortini, Jerome Dillon, Aaron North, Trent Reznor, Jeordie White
• Mix: Dave Sardy

Live

"Love Is Not Enough" was performed at about half of shows on the Live: With Teeth tour in 2005/6. It was the first song played in its debut show on March 25th, 2005, and opened a majority of the shows it was played at. It would become rarer as the tour went on, not appearing on the summer amphitheater tour.

Every performance of the song has featured new percussive backing tracks beneath the main drum beat; one is used on Beside You In Time, while the Lights In The Sky Tour version used a new ethnic percussion loop.

"Love Is Not Enough" was performed eight times at the early shows of the Performance 2007 tour, and then twice on the Lights In The Sky Tour. It did not return until 2022.

Lyrics

    The more that we take
    The paler we get
    I can't remember what it is
    We try to forget
    The tile on the floor
    So cold it can sting
    In your eyes is a place
    Worth remembering
    For you to go and take this
    To smash it apart
    I've gone all this fucking way
    To wind up
    To wind up back at the start
    
    Hey the closer we think we are
    Well it only got us so far
    Now you got anything left to show?
    No, no, I didn't think so
    Hey, the sooner we realize
    We cover ourselves with lies
    But underneath we're not so tough
    And love is not enough
    
    It hides in the dark
    Like the withering vein
    We didn't give it a mouth
    So it cannot complain
    It never really had a chance
    We'd never really make it through
    And to think I believed
    I believed I could get better with you
    
    Hey the closer we think we are
    Well it only got us so far
    Now you got anything left to show?
    No, no, I didn't think so
    Hey, the sooner we realize
    We cover ourselves with lies
    But underneath we're not so tough
    And love is not enough

The final lines of the first verse were changed to:

    To wind up back at
    Back at the start

Additional lyrics printed in the With Teeth PDF booklet, but not appearing in the song itself

    Left for dead and all used up

Previous track - "The Hand That Feeds" Track 5 from With Teeth Next track - "Every Day Is Exactly The Same"