A Tale of Inner Struggle: A Lyrical Analysis of “Line Without a Hook” by Ricky Montgomery

As I traverse my day to day life, I always have my headphones tucked snuggly in my pocket or my purse. It’s an instinct. When I get ready to head out the door, my hand is grabbing them before I even realize it. Wherever I go, they have to be with me. Since it is such an ingrained routine, some friends and family have questioned why I am bringing them along especially if the place I am going would likely not offer an opportunity to use them. Honestly, I never have a clear answer. All I am able to manage to say is, “I might need them.” However, the real answer is one much deeper: Music is a core part of myself.

Of all the reasons I fell in love with music, one that sticks out in my mind the most would be the artist’s words. Lyrics are usually a hit or miss for other music lovers. Either they are instrumental (pun intended) in their enjoyment of the medium or they are not a factor at all. Although I enjoy plenty of instrumental songs, lyrical music is the kind that I can’t help listening to a little more. This isn’t much of a surprise to anyone who knows me; a graduate with an English degree and a Theatre Arts minor fits the bill as someone who would appreciate the musical word. While I love all kinds of lyrics, the ones that attract me the most are, to little surprise, the ones that tell a story and/or are filled with imagery.

Song analysis is a pastime of mine that I mostly keep to myself. Every once in a while, I may mention my take on a track’s deeper meaning to a friend if we are listening to it together but I will likely have a semblance of an analysis already forming in my head if I am well-acquainted with the song. But now that I have this blog, I can expel all my lyric analysis on to all of you willing to read this! This realization has come with perfect timing because there is a little song that I have been listening to non-stop since I downloaded it to my Spotify that I felt was the perfect introduction to this lyrical analysis series. And that song is “Line Without a Hook” by Ricky Montgomery.

Ricky’s Experience with “Line Without a Hook” and My Take on the Great Debate

Released in 2016, “Line Without a Hook '' is the second song in Ricky Montgomery’s album Montgomery Ricky which initially dropped with little fanfare. His big-break came later in July 2020 on TikTok where “Line Without a Hook” and his other now famous piece “Mr. Loverman” took the platform by storm. Since then, Ricky’s music has exploded in popularity and in early 2021, he signed with Warner Records. His first release with them was a reimagining of “Line Without a Hook” with Mxmtoon (aka Maia) whose music also became popularized through TikTok. According to Ricky, “Line Without a Hook” is a song that masquerades itself as a love song but it is actually a song that allowed him to “capture the emotion of finally feeling like I was the one in control of [his] own life” (Ginsberg).

When it comes to interpreting art and creative outlets, there is a debate about whether or not the author, creator, or artist’s intention should dictate how the one consuming the piece views the art. One could search for the true meaning that the creator of the work had for their work and simply leave it at that or they could create their own view of the piece regardless of the creator’s original purpose. In my opinion, art will and should be translated from one's own experience. I can’t say this is a hard-set opinion of mine, however, since sometimes I will search to see if the artist has stated the meaning of their work out of curiosity. Even after discovering this new fact about the piece, I will allow my interpretation to be like a ball of clay, shaping it to my liking whether or not I let this information sway me. However, I believe anyone can take a song, a book, a movie, a show, or any creative medium and apply it to themselves and their experiences. Letting people resonate with art deepens one's experience with it. Since music is such an important part of my life, lyric analysis and song interpretation are ways for me to create connections with each track I listen to. Montgomery’s “Line Without a Hook” is no exception.

“Line Without a Hook” Lyrical Analysis

Before reading this analysis, listen to the song here! Also, here are the lyrics which may help you follow along.

Before I begin, there is some business I need to address first. Since this song has a recurring chorus as most songs do, I will be breaking up this analysis to focus on each stanza. While I will be mostly focusing on the lyrics when I give my analysis, I will, at times, mention the way the song plays a part in telling the story. I am not a professional in music, however, so I will not be going into the technical side of the art. Instead, I will be describing the music as someone who is an avid listener.

Here is how I will refer to each part of the song I will be interpreting (however, it may be a good idea to have the lyrics on another page on your browser):

Stanza 1: the first verse which begins with “I don’t really give a damn about the way you touch me.” (0:00-0:47)

Chorus: the second, fourth, and sixth verses which starts with the line “Oh baby, I am a wreck when I’m without you.” (0:48-1:19; 1:49-2:26; 3:27-4:09)

Stanza 2: the third verse that starts with “Oh whoa, whoa, whoa/I said no.” (1:22-1:48)

Stanza 3: the fifth verse, and the longest one, which begins with the line ““Darling, when I'm fast asleep.” (2:27-3:27)

Through each stanza, I will be weaving a story of someone who is desperate to be with their lover even though their relationship has changed drastically since their pleasant beginnings, now being one that is destructive and painful for the both of them. While I personally have never gone through this experience, the painful side of love and the mental toll that the main character is dealing with that I interpreted while listening to this song are ones that everyone has experienced to some degree. For this analysis, I will be referring to the one singing the song, who may or may not be Ricky Montgomery himself, as “the singer” with he/him pronouns while I will be referring to “their lover” with she/her pronouns as a later stanza in this song portrays these pronouns. With that all out of the way, let’s dive into the song!

Starting from the top, Stanza 1 begins with Ricky singing:

“I don't really give a damn about the way you touch me

When we're alone

You can hold my hand

If no one's home

Do you like it when I'm away?

If I went and hurt my body, baby

Would you love me the same?

I can feel all my bones coming back

And I'm craving motion

Mama never really learns how to live by herself

It's a curse

And it's growing

You're a pond and I'm an ocean

Oh, all my emotions

Feel like explosions when you are around

And I've found a way to kill the sounds, oh”

Typically seen as the part of the song that “hooks” someone into listening more, the beginning of the song drops us in the deep end with a very fast tempo without any buildup. While this was likely a surprise to many people upon their first listen, it ties in very well to the title of the song as it starts us off with a “Line Without a Hook.” It isn’t very often a song that bombards their listener with a fast tempo and this surprising lack of slow lead-in music kept me around for more. With an abrupt opening like this, it makes the listener feel like they are being thrown right in the thick of the emotions, especially with the strong use of “damn” in the first line which is as close to a curse as we will get in this whole song (0:00-0:02).

Taking a look at the lyrics, the first few lines start us off with the first piece of imagery, someone allowing his lover to do whatever she wants to him when they are alone. The singer doesn’t “give a damn” about how she touches him when it is just the two of them, even if it's as simple as a hand hold (0:00-0:09). This is not the thoughts of someone who is in a healthy romantic relationship but someone who is hinging on even the smallest touches to feel something is still there between them. Since he is still clinging on to their love from the past, he wonders if she “like[s] it when [he’s] away” or if she will stop loving him if he “hurt[s] [his] body” (0:10-0:16). Since we are viewing this relationship from his perspective, we as listeners can see how badly he views himself, especially as he places his lover on a pedestal. This is the first instance of where we see the singer deal with a low self-esteem, a significant part of his mindset that we will see more evidence of as the song continues. Regardless, it is this self-deprecating behavior that makes him cling to her and their love from the start of their relationship. In actuality, this is a call for help. He is seeking out someone who can give him the value that he can’t seem to see in himself.

While this is what we are able to pull from the first few lines, the rest of the stanza continues to elaborate on these feelings he is experiencing. Even though there may be many factors that contribute to the singer’s deflated self-worth, he mentions that his mother “never really learn[ed] how to live by herself” after presumably her partner left her (0:21-0:24). This could imply that she too struggled with her own mental health since she struggles to live alone. According to an article from WebMD on the “Signs of Low Self-Esteem,” the authors list many causes that could be linked to low self-esteem including, but not limited to, “your genes, how and where you grew up, and other life circumstances” (WebMD Editorial). Since this line seems very off topic to the rest of the song and even this verse, I take this as a subtle indication that what the singer is struggling with could be hereditary. Similarly to how he realizes what is going on with his mother, the singer also recognizes that what he is feeling is destructive, describing it as “a curse” (0:24-0:28). Unfortunately, he is also becoming aware that the feelings of attachment, need, and destructive love are growing into an ocean while hers may only be a pond in comparison. In fact, these feelings he has “feel like explosions when [she] is around” and are feeding into this attachment he has towards her (0:28-0:41). Within this first stanza, we are able to not only observe the nature of the relationship but also the singer’s struggle, being unable to deal with conflicting emotions and growing feelings despite his realization of their detrimental effects on them both.

Through intense metaphors and imagery, the chorus shows how deep his feelings go:

“Oh, baby, I am a wreck when I'm without you I need you here to stay I broke all my bones that day I found you Crying at the lake Was it something I said to make you feel like you're a burden? Oh, and if I could take it all back I swear that I would pull you from the tide”

Even though the chorus is present throughout the song, it is the most significant right after the first verse as there are many connections between them. The first two lines simply reiterate what the first stanza introduced to us: he is dependent on her. It is the next few lines that expand on how little self-esteem the singer has towards himself. While in the last verse he was asking if she would hate him if he hurt himself, this chorus has him supposedly committing such an action by “[breaking] all [his] bones that day [he] found [her]/Crying at the lake” (0:56-1:03). Seeing as this is a pretty impossible act, we can take this extreme bone breaking as purely metaphor. In fact, I believe this may be a reference to the common saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words may never hurt me.” In this case, it is the words that he says to himself about making her cry that are “breaking his bones.” He blames himself for making her cry that day and beats himself up for it, questioning if he said something that made “[her] feel like [she’s] a burden” (1:03-1:10). This assumption about how she feels like a burden could be self-projection since the line was so specific to how she could be feeling. Regardless, everything exhibited in this verse can be attributed to low self-esteem. Amongst the list of characteristics of low self-esteem, an article on the subject “produced in consultation with and approved by” the Victorian State Government, specifically their Department of Health, and NAPCAN, a non-profit dedicated to preventing child abuse and neglect, lists “blame[ing] themselves when things go wrong instead of taking into account other things over which they have no control such as the actions of other people” (“Self-Esteem”). While evidence of this can be heard throughout the song, it is here where the most of that self blame lies.

Not only does he place all of the blame of everything going wrong in their relationship on himself, the singer also attempts to carry her problems on his back as well. At the end of the song, he remarks about how he should be the one to “pull [her] from the tide” (1:10-1:20). The tide mentioned in this line ties to the various water metaphors sprinkled throughout the song like the lake she cries at in the chorus to the pond and ocean in the first verse, representing the gravity of each of their feelings. The pond and ocean metaphor tied into their feelings of attachment, need, and harmful love in particular and this carries over into this line in chorus as well. The lover realizes these feelings as disastrous for the both of them and is crying over the fact that their love has gotten to this point. Instead of listening to her, the singer blames himself for her sadness and pushes himself to add whatever her burdens are to his own, straining himself mentally even further by “pull[ing] [her] from the tide.” This chorus becomes the equivalent of an inner voice in his head that continues to beat himself down and condemn everything he says and does. With more instances of this inner voice in the rest of the song, it is clear that it is connected to his low self-esteem since another sign of negative self-worth is having “discussions with themselves...that are always negative, critical and self blaming” (“Self-Esteem”). As the next stanza will build on, the singer seems to be allowing his inner voice to be in control and most of the lyrics are from the negative self-talk in his head.

Continuing this train of thought, Stanza 2 builds on the idea that he is gripping on to the love that they had in the past:

“Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa I said no (I said no), I said no (I said no) Listen close, it's a no The wind is a-pounding on my back And I found hope in a heart attack Oh at last, it is past Now I've got it, and you can't have it”

When I came to the first three lines of this verse during my initial analysis, I was unsure as to what or who the singer is referring to. However, after re-listening to this part of the song and considering the lead up to this verse, I believe that the music is insinuating that this is his inner voice, hitting him with these “no”s and telling him to listen to them (1:23-1:32). If you listen carefully to this section of the song, the cymbals accent each of the “whoa”s and the “no”s then return later in the line “the wind is a-pounding on my back,” creating a visual of the wind hitting him (1:23-1:37). This wind is not wind in the literal sense but his inner voice’s degrading comments attacking him from inside.

In fact, this inner voice continues to mock and attack him as the verse continues. I believe that the “heart attack” mentioned in the next time is about the initial spark and the beginning of their relationship that was enjoyable for them both that has now become an “attack,” damaging both of them (1:36-1:40). However, the hope of the happy past they both shared is something his inner voice is telling him to still cling to. His inner voice relishes in the fact that it can have this hope and ability to relive the past while the singer in real time “can’t have it” (1:43-1:48). In essence, this whole stanza is the singer’s inner voice not only relaying constant reminders of his low self-worth but also letting him know that the happy days of relationship's past will only live in his mind and he can no longer obtain it.

While it isn’t the very last verse in the song, Stanza 3, the final set of lines that are not the chorus, are the most powerful in the whole song both lyrically and within the music itself:

“Darling, when I'm fast asleep I've seen this person watching me Saying, "Is it worth it? Is it worth it? Tell me, is it worth it?" Oh Guess there is something, and there is nothing There is nothing in between And in my eyes, there is a tiny dancer Watching over me, he's singing ‘She's a, she's a lady, and I am just a boy’ He's singing, ‘She's a, she's a lady, and I am just a line without a hook’”

Unlike any other part of the song, these lines are the singer speaking directly to his lover. After all this time, he is actually telling her what he has been dealing with; “this person watching [him]” is another inner voice of his that is actually trying to make him come to the realization that this is unhealthy (2:26-2:33). We have seen in previous stanzas that he is aware that these thoughts, these feelings, and this relationship are detrimental to them both but up until this point, he has been succumbing to his low self-esteem, creating an internal battle for him to deal with alone. Now that he has opened up to her, he is able to hear this new inner voice, calling for him to question if what he is doing is worth all this pain (2:30-2:55).

Unfortunately, the negative self-talk has not gone away completely as the old inner voice has now become a “tiny dancer” (3:02-3:10). This metaphorical manifestation of the inner voice is not anything new. While before it had been described as a wind pushing him down or a commanding voice, the inner voice has now shrunk, after talking to his lover, into this “tiny dancer,” a small distraction that is trying to remind him of his low self-worth. Not only is the inner voice a dancer but it is a singer too, mentioning to him that his lover “is a lady” who has dealt with these painful feelings herself while he is “just a boy” who is still struggling even now (3:10-3:22). Calling her “a lady” while he is “just a boy” is purposeful word choice by the inner voice to minimize the legitimacy of what the singer is dealing with compared to the lover. It seems that the inner voice is resorting to taunting by calling the singer “a boy” since their hold on him has weakened. Additionally, their dancing and singing demonstrates their desperation for attention in the singer’s mind as well. This is evidence of his first step into a healthier mindset.

In fact, the very last line, which also holds the song’s name, proves this even further. The “tiny dancer” tells the singer that his lover is “a lady” once more and that he is just “a line without a hook,” or someone who will never be able to find another to love again (3:18-3:27). I came to this interpretation of the song’s title through the common phrase, “you found a catch.” Typically, this is said to someone who has found a partner that looks like the perfect fit for them. With this in mind, the inner voice is twisting this expression, saying that he will never be able to “catch” anyone since he doesn’t even have a hook. However, when you listen to this line in the song, it gets cut off at the very end with Ricky singing the beginning of the final chorus (3:24-3:30). It is a powerful moment where the singer is able to talk over the negative talk that he has been having with himself all this time and be able to talk about it with someone he trusts. Additionally, the intensity of the way the first line of the last verse is sung supports this as he is able to truly build the confidence to overcome the inner voice for the first time.

While the final chorus is no different lyrically than times it has played, the way that it is sung at the end is critically different than any other time in the song. Not only does it start by cutting off the line in the last stanza, it is also sung at a higher pitch. By doing this, Ricky is giving this conclusion a sense of defiance towards the inner voice that has been destroying the singer inside. Continuing from the last verse, this chorus is also spoken to the lover as well, allowing her to hear what he has been holding inside him all this time. With all this off his chest, the singer can now face what will come next in their relationship with her.

Just One of Many Lenses

Through the lens of my interpretation, “Line Without a Hook” has become a song that observes someone as he realizes his damaging low self-worth, especially in connection to his relationship, and takes the first step to healing. It is a song of empowerment. While many may not experience this exact scenario I have pulled from the lyrics, dealing with self-esteem and other mental health issues is not uncommon. Everyone deals with “a wind” that consistently beats on them or an inner voice that is extremely critical of ourselves occasionally. However, “Line Without a Hook” presents a person who has been dealing with this for a while, since the start of their relationship at least, and is recognizing how it is affecting him and others in a negative way. However, the singer has taken one step towards helping himself heal and that is through building a support system which is one of the many ways one can start to improve their self-esteem (“Self-Esteem”). If you are resonating with any of the feelings expressed in my analysis, you should look into ways of boosting your self-esteem on the internet or with your doctor and see if any of those methods work for you.

Regardless of my interpretation of this popular song, Ricky Montgomery has weaved a spectacular story within the frame of four minutes through vivid imagery and metaphor. This analysis, along with the many others that can be found on the internet, may not have been ones Ricky was expecting when first writing the song but is the result that comes with any tune. Each and every person who listens to the same song will walk away with a different impression that may have some similarities between each other or wild contrasts. No perspective will be identical and I think that is one of the many reasons I see music and any form of art to be so fascinating. While in this moment in time there are various interpretations of a piece of art, these analyses can shift and change over time as people connect them to current events or understandings that we cannot comprehend in this moment. Art will forever be seen through many eyes and leave a unique mark on each of them.

Ginsberg, Gab. “Ricky Montgomery Signs with Warner Records, Debuts 'Line without a Hook' with Mxmtoon: Exclusive.” Billboard, 5 Feb. 2021, www.billboard.com/articles/news/9521289/ricky-montgomery-signs-warner-records-line-without-a-hook-mxmtoon.

“Self Esteem.” Self Esteem - Better Health Channel, Victorian State Government Department of Health and NAPCAN, www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/self-esteem.

WebMD Editorial, Contributors. “Low Self-Esteem: What Are the Signs to Look for and How to Deal with It.” Edited by Brennan Dan, Signs of Low Self-Esteem, WebMD, www.webmd.com/mental-health/signs-low-self-esteem.