No One Ever Gets What They Want

"No One Ever Gets What They Want"
Single by Romo from the album Tambora
Released	February 19, 2021
Format	CD single Vinyl single Digital download
Recorded	2020-21
Genre	Electropop · Avant-pop · Experimental · Art rock · Progressive rock
Length	4:53
Label	The Empire
Writer	Jenna Romo
Producer	Jenna Romo · Andre Cassenove
Chart position	#4 (Urapopstar Top 40 Singles Chart) #5 (Urapopstar Airplay 40)
Certification	Gold
Additional artwork
Romo chronology
"Madame Bullshit" (2020) "No One Ever Gets What They Want" (2021) "Psi (Before The End)" (2021)

"No One Ever Gets What They Want" is a song by Romo, the sixth and final song from her sixth studio album Tambora. The song was the album's first and only single, released on February 19, 2021. The song marked Romo's first co-production collaboration with Indigo Peak's Andre Cassenove in 12 years.

At four minutes and fifty-three seconds, "No One Ever Gets What They Want" is the shortest song on Tambora and of Romo's two surprise-released albums in 2020-21. Romo designed it to be a reverse of "Madame Bullshit", which starts angry and ends melancholy, by including ballad-like verses and an angry, defiant hook. Cassenove co-produced the hook portion of the song, with Romo aiming for the overall work to "remind people why they loved Romo in the first place."

"No One Ever Gets What They Want" underperformed upon its release despite an aggressive and visible promotional campaign, debuting and peaking at #4.

Composition

"No One Ever Gets What They Want" started as a poem Romo wrote during a two-month, self-imposed exile. She wrote it as a musing on how fame makes villains out of the powerful and makes even relatively successful people like herself feel like she will never be truly happy with what she has.

The final version of the song took its form when Romo thought the album needed a song that reminded people why they became fans of hers during her 2008-11 run. It combines the introspective alternative pop of her two self titled albums with an electropop-inspired bridge co-produced by former production collaborator Andre Cassenove of Indigo Peak.

Lyrics

The song's first two verses tell the story of a couple who get rich off the suffering of others, and the effect it has on society, up until their empire crumbles when a natural disaster destroys their home and their business operations. The narrator, who has faced setbacks in life resulting from the couple taking advantage of her despite putting in the hard work that she had been told would lead to a great reward, initially feels resigned that her voice carries no power because she does not have the wealth to back it up, until expressing a defiance in the song's chorus that provokes her to stand up for herself ("You take all I have, giving nothing in return / Take any more from me, I will make you burn").

The first verse concludes, "I moved mountains to get here, risking myself for reward / Nothing to show for this blood and sweat, but a meager mouse." The lyrics are a reference to one of Aesop's fables, The Mountain In Labor, in which a mountain labors and produces only a mouse; it's frequently used as a metaphor for things that hold much promise but deliver little, and Romo is believed to have drawn inspiration from the underperformance of her single "Madame Bullshit" despite an aggressive and highly visible campaign to get the song to #1 (it only debuted at #5, and when her grievances came to light the single crashed on the charts). Romo's lyrical inspiration from her career setbacks and Aesop's fables build on the two songs on Tambora that were released ahead of the album, "The Scorched Earth" and "Lupus (Or...)".

Romo also builds upon album's overarching theme of relating the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 to modern times and exploring the idea of the Earth rebelling against humanity for damaging it in the first words of the second verse ("They stand on the apex of a loose cannon / At the very moment when nature seeks vengeance against its creation"). She also references the Book of Job in the Bible, alluding to the losses of his children and his wealth despite his service to God. The penultimate lines of the third verse, where Romo theorizes her generation will fail to impart wisdom on future generations because her elders failed to do the same for them, is a criticism of the excesses and conservative political leanings of the Baby Boomer generation.

Some music journalists made comparisons to the Foo Fighters' 2007 single "The Pretender", which contains a "who are you" bridge that builds up to a scream, because of Romo's reliance on a shouted "WHO! ARE! YOU!" in the chorus.

Track listings

CD single

1. No One Ever Gets What They Want
2. No One Ever Gets What They Want (Knobfeelers Remix)
3. Take The Mirror

Vinyl single

1. No One Ever Gets What They Want
2. No One Ever Gets What They Want (Knobfeelers Remix)
3. Take The Mirror

Promotion

Romo confirmed an in-studio collaboration with Indigo Peak on January 18, 2021, three days before the release of Tambora; the session involved the making of "No One Ever Gets What They Want". A day later, Romo announced a partnership with Cards Against Humanity for a Romo-themed expansion pack. During the promotion, Romo weighed in on controversies involving Jack Stevens and Shell Ruin breaking lockdown restrictions and not wearing masks by posting a photo of herself going out on a supply run while wearing a mask with a caption reading "Don't support Covidiots." She also commented on clueless American Twitter users who were angered by Tambora because it sounded nothing like Bon Jovi, mistaking it as a project by their ex-guitarist Richie Sambora, invested the entirety of the royalties she earned from the last week in January in the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, and courted Amy Marshall, whose album FEROCIOUS. blocked Tambora from a #1 debut, for signing to The Empire.

In a controversial promo moment, Romo courted the support of a judge on the panel for pre-nominations of the inaugural Urapopstar Critic's Choice Awards by engaging in a cam-to-cam sexting session with him. The judge anonymously revealed to the tabloids that he witnessed Romo orgasm by squirting, a prowess she alluded to in lyrics to a remix of Syd Wolfe's "Ex-Talk" for her Club Supreme remix album, where Romo's verse included the line, "Miss the way you made me squirt just from your words."

In another controversial moment, Romo abruptly ended an interview with Digital Spy when the interviewer persistently pressed her to reveal the identities of the subjects of her songs.

Performances

Romo debuted "No One Ever Gets What They Want" and other songs from Tambora live for the first time in a livestream concert, The Song Of No Summer, on February 19, 2021. The pay-per-view livestream event was a sequel to Feminist Christ's Revival (In The Name Of The Mother), which showcased songs from her previous album Romo (II). Romo performed the song as a collaborative medley with Indigo Peak, which also included segments of the duo's "Cocaine" and "Never Really Gone" and their 2009 collaboration with Romo, "Dirty Vinyl".

Romo is expected to perform the song at the 1st Urapopstar Critics Choice Awards.

Music video

The video premiered on Vevo on February 12, 2021. It depicts Romo performing a funeral ritual for Madame Bullshit where she buries her remains in a volcano.

The video opens on the frame of an empty street as the rumble of an engine with the faint sound of an electropop song in the distance emerging. It turns out the engine is coming from a motorcycle roaring down the highway, blasting Romo's previous single "Madame Bullshit". In a reference to that single's glitch art-inspired visual campaign, the helmet the motorcyclist wears bears a cluttered pattern of many colors. The frame shows the motorcycle going faster on the highway as the view cuts between the cycle angle, a closeup of the cyclist's helmet, and the street view. These frame views alternate until the cycle attempts to navigate a dangerous curve. The song stops. A crash is heard. The scene abruptly goes black. The title card appears: "ROMO in NO ONE EVER GETS WHAT THEY WANT"

During the first verse, the camera alternates between two points of view: Romo, who is walking alone through an open field with her eyes focused on a volcano in the distance, with the volcano's point of view depicted as well. Romo is shown walking, head down with her eyes to the ground, carrying an ornate glass in one of her hands. In a closeup frame, we see the details of the object, which is an urn holding ashes with the inscription "REST IN POWER MADAME BULLSHIT".

The camera zooms through the urn, revealing a scene with lava flowing like a waterfall in the backdrop. Romo and a congregation of dancers wearing face masks - the same ones featured in the "Feminist Christ" video. These masks feature text reading "WHO ARE YOU", a key line in the hook. Romo, wearing a two-piece swimsuit, leads them in a dance strikingly similar to Beyonce and Janet Jackson videos - trying to go for a Loretta Lambert vibe - culminating in raised fists at the "WHO! ARE! YOU!" shout. Lava flows through the camera and the image shifts back to the setting of the first verse.

The camera continues to alternate between Romo's perspective and the volcano's perspective. At various points, the volcano is shown rumbling, a sign it's close to erupting. Romo makes her closest approach to the volcano just as the second verse ends, but first, the camera zooms back into the urn for a second dance sequence.

At her closest approach to the volcano, Romo slowly raises the urn. The camera alternates between close-up shots of Romo's face, the volcano, and Romo's hands clutching the urn. Romo raises the urn high at the line "But one last thing, sir, before my next slap in the face," and at the precise moment in the song where a glass breaking sound is heard, the urn is thrown into the volcano and shatters. The volcano erupts in response. Romo, arms stretched out, watches as the lava flows in her direction, but she does not express fear or panic, watching as the mass engulfs her. A moment of silence passes. Romo stands naked facing the volcano, unharmed by the flow as she is one with the volcano - similar to how fire cannot harm Daenerys Targaryen in Game Of Thrones. "I'm home," Romo says.

The camera pans into Romo's body, revealing the same scene we saw in the detail shot of the urn - the scene of Romo and her backup dancers dancing behind a waterfall-like lava flow. Their dance routine occurs one last time before the video ends with another lava flow consuming the view of the camera.

Reception

The music video for "No One Ever Gets What They Want" received critical acclaim. Most critics praised the stunning, blockbuster film-like visual effects and the choreography in the scenes depicting Romo and her backup dancers inside a lava flow.

Reception

Critical

"No One Ever Gets What They Want" received mostly positive reviews from music critics, many of whom complimented Romo for bridging her lyrically deep and musically experimental songs with her hookiest work. Critics also praised the reunion of Romo and Indigo Peak, whose partnership in the late 2000s led to career highlights like "Schizo Pop".

Commercial

On February 4, 2021, "No One Ever Gets What They Want" entered the Urapopstar Airplay 40 chart at #29. It has since reached #5.

"No One Ever Gets What They Want" debuted and peaked at #4 on the Urapopstar Top 40 Singles Chart on February 25, 2021 with sales of 92,586 copies. Despite marking the best first week sales out of the three singles of Romo's comeback era, it was the lowest debuting of the week's new releases and considered a disappointment given the single's aggressive and visible promotional campaign. The single has sold 365,781 copies, enough to be certified gold.

Controversy

Following the charting of "No One Ever Gets What They Want", Romo's manager posted a lengthy message questioning the compilation factors and fairness behind singles' chart positions, angered that the single was Romo's second consecutive strongly promoted single to miss the top 3 in its entry week. The post sparked much discussion about the merits of the chart and biases in favor of some managers over others.