Break-up music is not the best thing to listen to right after a break-up.
However, having a couple of songs about break-ups in your back pocket is a good way to revisit old, painful emotions in a way that is far less heartbreaking and much more reflective. You might connect with a specific situation or lyric in a break-up song because you went through a similar situation; you might even hear something really melodramatic and realize how silly you were "back then," and subsequently experience some closure and catharsis. Or maybe you're mad at your ex and you need music that empowers you. No matter how it affects you personally, break-up music is great because it gives you a glimpse into the life of the artist and allows you to connect with the music in a way that other songs can't. For example, which incredibly popular song strikes more of a chord with you?
"I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Singing aaaayy ooo
Gotta let go.
I wanna celebrate and live my life."
"And when we meet, which I'm sure we will,
all that was there will be there still.
I'll let it pass and hold my tongue
and you will think that i've moved on."
...you're right. Dynamite.
So if you're getting tired of listening to Adele's 21 (hey Adele, we get it) on repeat but you need a little break-up music, skip the Taylor Swift and look no further than this list:
break-ups.
Calling and Not Calling My Ex - Okkervil River
Folk music is all the rage right now, thanks to good old mmfrd n sns, guys who have the same first and last name, and monsters and men or whatever. Unfortunately, the things that make folk music fantastic - namely story and emotion - have been unceremoniously siphoned out and replaced with epileptic banjos and egregious harmonies. Mumford and Sons are the kings of saying things that don't mean anything and disguising them as deep folk ruminations, but even more acceptable bands like The Civil Wars border on asininity in their weaker moments. Okkervil River, on the other hand, has stayed true to the rich culture of storytelling that Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash started (and Sufjan has kept alive). "Calling and Not Calling My Ex" is an upbeat, yet wistful song about a guy who's ex-girlfriend becomes famous. He starts seeing her everywhere and begins to regret what happened between them, but the beauty of the song is that he truly misses her; he's doesn't just want her for her success.
More From This Band: Our Life is not a Movie or a Maybe, Unless It's Kicks, The John Allyn Smith Sails
Heart in Your Heartbreak - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
My best friend sent me a text about what this song makes him think of and he nailed it.
"Sitting in the back of my older brother's Toyota, holding hands through hoodies, crying on each others shoulders on the way back from the skatepark behind the mall. Yellow strobing streetlights. Sitting in the old treehouse smoking our first cigarette together, barely hearing mom and dad fighting from the kitchen over the sound of a Smiths record. Her kissing me on the cheek and whispering "let's run somewhere."
Teenage love, man.
More From This Band: Stay Alive, Anne with an E, A Teenager in Love
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
Not so much a break-up song as a song about a love that is fading away. Absolutely tragic. It so perfectly describes that moment in a relationship when routine and complacent comfort start to replace passion, and Ian Curtis doesn't know how to remedy the relationship as he watches it slip away:
When routine bites hard,
And ambitions are low.
And resentment rides high,
But emotions won't grow.
And we're changing our ways,
Taking different roads.
Love, love will tear us apart again.
"Skinny Love" is pretty similar thematically. All of you who thought it was a happy song...sorry. Check out "Far From Me" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for similar themes as well. Also, you can hear a little shout out to this song in Sufjan's brilliant commentary on the bastardization of Christmas/our own culpability in it/the fact that Christmas transcends anything we could ever do to it, "Christmas Unicorn."
Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
Rumors, frequently (and appropriately) touted as one of the all time greatest albums, is the grandfather of Adele's 21 in the sense that it is the quintessential break-up album (possibly only rivaled by Spiritualized Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating In Space). Right before it was written, these things happened:
Vocalist Christine McVie and bassist John McVie divorced after eight years of marriage.
Vocalist Stevie Nicks and guitarist Lindsay Buckingham (who were dating) started fighting.
Drummer Mick Fleetwood learns that his wife had an affair with his best friend.
So...every single person in the band was having serious relationship issues. As good songwriters tend to do, Fleetwood Mac composed an album chock full of songs inspired by real emotions. Here's the track list and subsequent themes.
Second Hand News - breaking up
Dreams - breaking up
Never Going Back Again - breaking up
Don't Stop - being hopeful about the future following a break-up
Go Your Own Way - breaking up
Songbird - loving yourself in the midst of a relationship
The Chain - breaking up with someone who is cheating on you
You Make Loving Fun - the honeymoon stage of a relationship
Oh Daddy - staying in a relationship that you don't really want to be in
Gold Dust Woman - cocaine (both very literally and as a metaphor for a lover)
So, break-ups and cocaine.
Call your Girlfriend - Robyn
Have you ever been told by your significant other that he or she has met someone else?
Have you ever told that to someone?
Three White Horses - Andrew Bird
The most beautiful song on this list. Andrew Bird very simply calls attention to the human need for companionship by describing life as a walk toward death, and the loneliness that the journey brings when walked alone. One of his most vocally powerful songs, rich with symbolism.. just beautiful. At the end of this album - Hands of Glory, if you're interested - there is a song called "Beyond the Valley of the Three White Horses" that serves as an outro to this song.
I Know It's Over - The Smiths
Morrissey, in typical Smiths fashion, is pretty mopey on this song. But the situation warrants it; the "woman" he loves is marrying another man and he has nowhere to turn except to his mother. Musically, this is definitive Smiths. Jangly, airy guitars. Crooning vocals. Splashy drums. Played in a major key that still manages to sound sad because of the angst in the lead singers voice, especially toward the end when he almost breaks into tears singing "Oh mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head." A beautiful song that has the power to transport you to a very specific time. For me, it's taking a walk on a sunny winter day in February, or a spending a humid July 4th drinking tea on the back porch.
Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses - U2
Achtung Baby is the U2 album for people that don't like U2, and "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" is arguably the greatest break-up song ever. There's no anger. There's no spite. There is only the songer asking "when I'm gone, who is going to understand and love you the way that I did?" It's a sincere question...there's no jerky subtext of "well, good luck finding another me, bitch."It's a man praising the complicated, wild, and free creature that he loves and who once loved him, and hoping that someone will connect with her soul the way that he did. The only song on this list that makes me tear up, yet the only song that makes me feel truly happy after I hear it.
U2 doesn't play this song live because they've never been able to "capture it again."
Honorable Mentions:
Blood On the Leaves - Kanye West (Wait for the horns to drop... this song is pure anguish.)
Impossible Soul - Sufjan Stevens (much more than just a break-up song.)
Broken Heart - Spiritualized (tragic)
Breakup Songs - Deerhoof
