Songfacts®:

• Michael Kiwanuka talks here of an inability to make an emotional connection. He penned the song during a particularly low and lonesome point. Kiwanuka told Q magazine: "I thought, 'Maybe I can't love anyone properly.' That's the saddest tune I've ever written."
• The startling lyrical honesty marks the Love & Hate record. Kiwanuka told Q: "That brutal honesty, it's a bit addictive, it's like pure therapy. It's like if you've got a bad back and you go to a chiropractor and you realize how good it feels and you just want to keep clicking your back."
• Asked by The Guardian what his fiancée thinks of such songs as this one, Kiwanuka admitted: "At first, I couldn't play songs like I'll Never Love. I would take them off the set list at gigs she was at, because they're dark, sad songs. But they've not got anything to do with our relationship – you can go to other parts of yourself, past times, old relationships."