Songfacts®:

• When Ingrid Michaelson met with her co-writers Amy Stroup and Anna Schulze ("Not A Monster") to write a song for the pop singer's For The Dreamers album, the trio started discussing the challenges kids today face. While none of them have children, the subject is near to their heart as aunts to nieces and nephews, so they wrote "It Never Ends" as a reminder that we all have the power inside us to overcome obstacles.
  
  "We were talking about how difficult kids these days have it, navigating social media and climate change and the political landscape that we live in and how challenging it's going to be for these little ones," Michaelson recalled in a 2024 Songfacts interview. "We wanted to write a song for them and that's where 'It Never Ends' came from. It also became a little bit of a mantra for myself, as all the songs usually do have some measurement of myself in it."
• While children were the inspiration for the song, it wasn't necessarily written for kids in general. Still, Michaelson admits it's a good message for youngsters, especially the repetition -
  
  All the light I'm seeing is coming from you
  All the light you're needing is coming from you
  And it never ends
  
  "I love the idea of having your kid listen to it," she said. "Not that I wrote it for children, but it is something younger kids can benefit from with those words. And that repetition is like a mantra, it's like a prayer, and every time you say it, it can weigh a little heavier, it can have a little more meaning. Like when you're coloring with a crayon and you shade something in and you go over and over it, it goes deeper and deeper and deeper. With the repetition of that song, the meaning becomes enhanced the more you listen to it."
• The song ties in with the overall theme of For The Dreamers, Michaelson's 10th studio album, which is about seeking light in the darkness. She explained: "There's a theme of the record, same as in 'Backyard' - just keep going, keep believing in the good stuff. Because there is good stuff, and you might have to conjure that yourself at times. That's why I called it For The Dreamers, because the songs are for those people who are looking for the light side of things because there's so much heaviness right now. There's always been heaviness but it seems like it's heavier than ever. I wanted to make something that gave people a little slice of peace, something to nestle into for 40 minutes and feel a little jolt of serotonin."
• Prior to issuing the album in 2024, Michaelson hadn't released a studio album since 2019's Stranger Songs. In the meantime, she was busy composing music for the Broadway musical The Notebook and writing songs for TV shows like Hulu's Little Fires Everywhere, which featured her single "Build It Up" for its climax.