By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
"Never Had Another" broadens the earlier warning into a chant where love still cannot say enough, so the listener is told to become mountain, top, sailing ship, sea, and repeated song.
This version leans harder into transformation, asking the beloved to become not just one figure of endurance but an entire environment. The handwritten insertions make the movement more direct: be the top, and be there Just Like you. Falling repeats until it almost becomes rhythm instead of disaster, and the closing good as a song makes recurrence feel survivable.
'Never Had Another' is the second of three variants on the same address: 'She looked through the day / Clear and blue', 'She flew in the night / Brilliant and bright', but 'That is not enough / For love to say.' The commands escalate into pairs - 'be the mountain / be the top', 'be the sailing ship / be the sea' - and the falling, instead of being a warning, becomes rhythm: 'Fall'in and fall'in / Again and again / good as a song.' Repetition turns collapse into something survivable, even musical.