Valentine’s Day. Unless you’re in the “honeymoon phase” of a relationship it can be a fairly rough trot. Are you fed up with the chocolates and roses crowd and their sickening kissy-faces? Why wouldn’t you be?
It’s especially hard if you’ve just had your heart drop-kicked for goal by a callous cad or stroppy siren. There are books that can help you through the rough times and I’ve mentioned those in Valentines posts past but when it comes to heartbreak nothing is more succinct, more visceral, more pointedly true than the lyrics of popular songs.
Yes, you’ll find it hard to listen to the lovey-lovey stuff and don’t even go near “your song” for at least a year but songs are great for a bit of wallowing or even better a bit of “you suck and I don’t even care that you’re going out with my best friend now” catharsis. The following list has been cribbed from “On & off songs for the dumped” from The Advertiser but I’ve padded it with a few suggestions of my own to make it a nice round twenty.
- End of the road – Boyz II Men
- Ain’t no sunshine – Bill Withers
- Just don’t know what to do with myself – Dusty Springfield/The White Stripes
- Tainted love – Soft Cell
- Good riddance (Time of your life) – Green Day
- I will survive – Gloria Gaynor
- Everything about you – Ugly Kid Joe
- Hit the road Jack – Ray Charles
- Song for the dumped – Ben Folds Five
- You oughta know – Alanis Morissette
- You keep me hangin’ on – Diana Ross & the Supremes/Kim Wilde
- Irreplaceable – Beyoncé
- Crazy – Patsy Cline
- I hope I never – Split Enz
- Please don’t leave me – Pink
- Gives you hell – All American Rejects
- Since u been gone – Kelly Clarkson
- Crying – Roy Orbison
- Love is a battlefield – Pat Benatar
- Since I don’t have you – Skyliners/Guns n Roses
So what do you think of this list? Anyone got suggestions of their own for a lovelorn playlist for one?
12 February 2010 at 3:26 pm
Sleepin’ single in a double bed – Yeah country and western does it best every time, and it sounds like our own Suzanne Prentice does a version.
and for a little understated, not at all melodramatic, break up song what about The end of the world. Herman’s Hermits does the version I know:
“Why does the sun go on shining
Why does the sea rush to shore
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world
‘Cause you don’t love me any more”
12 February 2010 at 3:28 pm
And you’ve just made me reserve cds by Suzanne Prentice and Herman’s Hermits now!
13 February 2010 at 9:44 pm
Just wondering if there are any songs about being the dumper? That can be just as traumatic, but the sympathy always goes with the dumped. Why is that?
14 February 2010 at 10:51 am
This is the last day of our acquaintance. Repeat. Yep, that’ll do it.
15 February 2010 at 2:32 pm
Will love tear us apart or bore us to death?Anti-love anthems are wee islands of sanctuary in a sugary pink sea of schmaltzy love songs. Purists claim there is a bold difference between the genuine anti-love song and your general all purpose “I’ve been dumped” ditty but vengeful, vitriolic tunes are all welcome in my anti-valentine club….
There’s too much love by Belle and Sebastian
UR the one by Mos Def
Love is a losing game by Amy Winehouse
Leeds United by Amanda Palmer
18 February 2010 at 4:50 pm
Marianne Faithfull – Why d’ya do it? – Broken English
A powerful dumpee number.
22 February 2010 at 2:25 pm
Whenever I think of regretful romantic wallowings I’m always reminded of Half Life sung by Duncan Sheik…Ironically it appears in the soundtrack of the movie What a Girl Wants!