b) Beyoncé and him both being each other's best thing and both missing out (only use one interpretation, based on our original view of sentence 2).a) Beyoncé as the worst thing wallowing in self-deprecation singing about her missed opportunity to have the best thing (flip our interpretations above).In isolation, we could interpret them in other ways and have one of the following: Of course, our dual interpretation of these ambiguous sentences is made in the context of the rest of the lyrics. So, again roughly speaking, B is the best thing. The "I will never be" inverts this to mean B is the highest-value thing that C has never had (and adds that this state will be maintained as long as B is around). So here "the best thing you never had" says that B is the lowest-value thing that C has never had. Sentence 3 ("I will never be the best thing you never had") is interpreted in the same way as sentence 1 (with the parties exchanged) and then negated by the initial "never", and not as simply a negation of sentence 2 despite the syntactic similarity. C is doing the not-having and from C's point of view, the best thing to not have is the lowest-valued thing. This is the key to the seemingly misworded song title. So, loosely speaking, C is the worst thing. The best thing to not have, from her point of view, is the lowest-valued thing. So "best" here can mean the 'best to not have'. The scope of the word "best" can include the "never" and then its negation affects the interpretation of "best". In sentence 1 ("You turned out to be the best thing I never had"), the not-having is being done by B. And then the "you never had" is an extra bit of information that states that C (he) has never had B. So "best" here can mean its usual 'highest valued'. The word "best" is tightly bound to the word "thing" - it has a very restricted scope. B (Beyoncé) states that she is the best thing. Sentence 2 ("I will always be the best thing you never had") has the simpler interpretation. Starting with sentences 1 and 2, the trick lies with the word "best" and how its scope can be stretched in two ways, making the phrase ambiguous. To make it simpler, I'll refer to the singer as B (for Beyoncé) and him as C. Let's analyse the sentences and see how they work. While sentences 2 and 3 seem to flatly contradict each other, but mean the same thing. Sentences 1 and 2 use exactly the same phrase "the best thing never had" to mean directly opposing things for You and I. " I will never be the best thing you never had"." I will always be the best thing you never had"." You turned out to be the best thing I never had".It has some cleverly engineered but contradictory sounding lyrics: Beyoncé's "Best Thing I Never Had" is a song about her saying good riddance to her boyfriend.
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