DEPECHE MODE - NEVER LET ME DOWN AGAIN

Released : August 24, 1987

Charted:  UK: #22   US: #63 

"Never Let Me Down Again" is a song released as the second single from their sixth studio album “Music for the Masses”. The strident lyrics appear to reflect drug use and is a synth-pop masterpiece that well conveys the feelings of drug euphoria. The cover art features fragments of a Soviet map of Russia and Europe, with different fragments used for the different editions of the single.

This song is noted for the video in the 101 documentary when Gahan waves his hands in the air during the coda of the song, and the sold-out show of 60,000 all wave with him. When he was interviewed for the French magazine, Best, in 1989, he said: “For me, this is one of the most intense moments during the concert. “Firstly because this track has a very strong emotional charge, and every time I play it the waving goes well with the crowd. In addition, we were heading towards the end of the show and during this song, the stadium was on fire. When I saw the number of people there, I felt like crying. It was very moving.”

Gore in Bravo Magazine, 1987: "I wrote this song last March. And it was such a long time ago that I cannot say much about it anymore. But you're wrong [about the song because about my girlfriend], the song has nothing to do with relationships. It's about the concept of fleeing from reality and the evil awakening afterwards. Any kind of fleeing. Drugs, alcohol, or whatever."

Martin Gore in Rolling Stone magazine, 1993: "There was one instance regarding 'Never Let Me Down Again' when two separate people came up to me after a show one night and said, "I really like that song". One of them thought it was a gay anthem and the other one thought it was a drug anthem. They both loved the song, so that's fine by me."

The song enjoyed a streaming boost in the US after it was included in the HBO series The Last Of Us. It plays on the radio in the final scene of the show's pilot episode on January 15, 2023.