In the Temptations classic “I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You),” the singer’s lover has just told him that she is leaving and he begs her to stay, pleading he could never love another. Many sources explain that the song, and in particular the line, “You’ve taken away my reason for livin’,” were based on a true story.
The story behind the song involves young Motown songwriter Rodger Penzabene, who co-wrote “I Could Never Love Another.” He also co-wrote the similarly themed “I Wish It Would Rain” from the same album. On those songs, his co-writers were Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Penzabene also wrote other songs of heartbreak, including co-writing “Save Me From This Misery” for the Isley Brothers.
Penzabene and his wife had met as youths at Mumford High School. But sometimes love does not last forever.
Reportedly Penzabene had taken his wife back after she had an affair, but she ended up leaving him after all. As the album with “I Could Never Love Another” climbed the charts, Penzabene killed himself by gunshot on New Year’s Eve in 1967. He was 22.
Nothing makes the story more convincing than the anguished lead vocals on “I Could Never Love Another” by the great David Ruffin on his final lead vocal on a Temptations single (and who also died too soon from a tragic death). The way Ruffin sings the word “believe” in the first line immediately conveys the heartbreak and pain that permeates the entire song.
To the degree the song’s suicide backstory is true, though, we can never really know. Penzabene wrote the great song, and it seems he felt that heartbreak and loss. But suicide is a complicated act. If everyone who is deeply heartbroken killed herself or himself, our species would have died out long ago.
Penzabene also wrote lyrics for happy songs, such as “You’re My Everything.” He wrote that Temptations song with his friend Cornelius Grant. The two men were so close that before Penzabene killed himself, he sent Grant a telegram stating, “Rodger Penzabene is dead.” The songwriter also wrote a letter to his family and friends apologizing for the grief that would come from his death.
Of course, Penzabene’s feelings about his lost love likely contributed to his depression. But one could probably point to other factors too that might have contributed to the final act of the young father. At age 22, he was still almost a kid, trying to make some sense of the world and his success. And, at the time of his death, reportedly he was losing his sight due to a head injury. Who knows what role the holiday of New Year’s Eve contributed to his feelings? Who knows what frustrations he faced in the music industry? One of his sons later noted in an online comment that Penzabene’s songs were not about heartbreak over a woman but about frustrations with the music industry and Motown in particular.
So, even if a simplified tragic love story fits with our perception of the song, there is more to the tale than that someone was heartbroken, wrote a brilliant sad song about that heartbreak, and then killed himself as the song climbed the charts.
At the time of the songwriter’s death, Penzabene’s wife Helga Penzabene was very young herself, caring for the couple’s two young sons, Rodger Jr. and 10-month-old Carl. After Penzabene’s death, she tried to set the record straight by clarifying that Rodger did not kill himself over her. In 2012, she wrote in the comments to a post on Elvis Needs Boats that she was alive and well, living in Mount Clemens, Michigan. She had remarried twice, most recently divorced, and she still sang. She reported that she was working on a book about her life with Rodger.
That book was never written. Helga passed away in 2016 from cancer.
I suspect, though, that whatever words might have been written in a book, many would still choose to believe the less complex heartbroken suicide version. We need tragic heroes, and the song is too great, the Temptations too awesome, and our own experiences of heartbreak so painful, that maybe we just want to believe that the songwriter killed himself after losing his reason for living.
Check out other posts in our series “The Story Behind the Song.” What is your favorite heartbreak song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
