For the last 6 months, whenever I've been in a restaurant, driving, walking through a mall, listening to Pandora at work, sitting at a ballgame, or anywhere I might be exposed to music, I've been much more acutely aware of the constant presence of love songs, especially those about heartbreak. If you are me, most songs about heartbreak are excruciatingly unpleasant listening when you're actually going through it. For my suffering, I would like to reward myself with a self-appointed position of authority on songs about heartbreak and I would like to declare the best and worst songs out there about the topic.
Two caveats: I am leaving Bruce Springsteen out of this discussion because I am biased in his favor ("I'm Goin' Down" would probably win best song by a landslide... "Landslide" being a song just a little on the good side of the good/bad heartbreak-song spectrum, incidentally. Both FM and SP versions), and I am limiting the songs for consideration to those songs that I have encountered repeatedly in the last 6 months without seeking them out, so, of course this is heavily biased to songs popular right now. I'm just having fun, let's not over-think this. I know you're not over-thinking this, I am. Look, just read on, ok?
-Worst song about heartbreak:
That "if you ever leave me darling, leave some morphines at my door... cause it would take a whole lot of medication..." song. I am pretty sure it was this one that had me close to walking out of both that Soho pizza joint on Hennepin Ave one day and a Target the next thanks to its presence. I am not even going to dignify its existence by looking up title and artist or checking whether or not I got that opening line verbatim. Good god, dude, too many people do not understand how devastated you can be by heartbreak and life can still go on, too many drug addictions instigated, don't reinforce that mentality. People remain in unhealthy relationships based on the kind of fears that song articulates. And, I mean, it's just a bad, pathetic song. This song had some stiff competition from that "now you're just somebody that I used to know" song, and that, uhhh... jeez, there's another pretty bad one out there in solid circulation right now, I'm pretty sure, it just slipped my mind. Or maybe I just thought of the "morphine" song twice, it's that bad.
-Best song about heartbreak:
"The Distance," Cake.
Catchy, rockin', good music, very clever and evocative lyrics ("they deftly maneuver and muscle for rank"), somehow honest while also being hilarious. I often think the most resonant expressions of emotion in any art, certainly pop music, are those casually or subtly delivered as is this gem of a line from this song: "bowel-shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse assail him, impale him, with monster-truck force." The song is so clever that it could be about something other than heartbreak and I don't know it. But it is to me and that's all that matters. Winner.
Boys of Summer by Don Henley kills me every time. That and Coldplay's "Fix You" (not completely sure if the song even applies to my situation). Otherwise, I know what you mean by the bad songs being so offensive. In separation the pain is raw and difficult, but strangely beautiful and sacred. To witness somebody dishonestly represent what we are at our most naked and primal is infuriating. Even worse, we know they have most likely been in our shoes... Spiritual treason. That song you were referring to was Bruno Mars, I remember him promising to jump in front of a train in that or another song, there is always hope.
ReplyDeleteWell said, as usual, my friend. Ha! Seriously, yeah, I think you might be right about throwing himself in front of a train. Yeah, Bruno, codependency is so lovely.
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