“Only The Lonely” is from The Motel’s 1982 album “All Four One” and peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 (where it spent 4 weeks). Singer, Marth Davis wrote the song on a guitar given to her by her late father, an administrator, at the University of California, Berkeley, who found the instrument in a hall on campus. Martha once said in an interview that the song is “about empty success. It came about while the Motels were experiencing critical acclaim, traveling the world, riding in limos, and yet I was probably as sad as I had ever been. I was in a horrible relationship and had not yet recovered from my parents’ death (I doubt one ever does). The contradiction of these two worlds was where ‘Only the Lonely’ lived… bittersweet.”
The video earned the “Best Performance in a Music Video” award at the American Music Awards