"You’re the Only One (I Never Performed For)" by Avery Cochrane traces a life spent turning intimacy into spectacle, always performing for saviors and stage doors until one love asks for nothing but the broken, bare truth. That acceptance terrifies and disarms, and even after goodbye, the memory lingers like childhood laughter, unrepeatable and irreplaceable. The showgirl finally dies, not as loss but as relief, because being seen without the cameras made the world stop and made perfect sense.
You’re the Only One (I Never Performed For) Lyrics by Avery Cochrane
He wanted me romanticized
And bought into the myth
That I needed an audience
Or I needed someone like him
Exhibition-overdrive
‘Til you talked me off the cliff
I was shocked, I was scared
I was underprepared
For someone to accept me broken and bare
Get it out your head
That you’re just like all the rest
‘Cause all I’ve ever known is saviors and stage doors
And you’re the only one I never performed for
So cut the cameras
And cancel the glamour
I know we said goodbye, but I will think of you forever
All the patriarchs are calling it poor form
That I loved someone I never performed for
Bye-bye, blackbird
Came running home to you
‘Til my legs gave out
And our plans fell through
Now I hear you like a laugh from the second grade
Miss you like childhood, never the same
But I’ll take what I can get
(I’ll take what I can get)
That’s everything you left
(That’s everything you left)
Get it out your head
That you’re just like all the rest
‘Cause all I’ve ever known is saviors and stage doors
And you’re the only one I never performed for
So cut the cameras
And cancel the glamour
I know we said goodbye, but I will think of you forever
All the patriarchs are calling it poor form
That I loved someone I never performed for
You made the world stop
Wrote my subplot
Know we don’t talk
But here’s one last love song
And on your very first attempt
You shot the showgirl, shot her dead
Never a chance to resurrect
Never be bred or born again
You know you just made perfect sense
You took it all up off my chest
All through my brain, bones, blood, and flesh
Think I will love you ’til the end
