Jezebel
Crappy Valentine's! And welcome to our all-time favorite hateful love songs post. The thing about love songs is that they only seem good when you're really really miserable thanks to love. In fact, if you're in a relationship and you find yourself listening to, say, "Divorce Song" or "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" or "Unsatisfied" or "She's Gone"...or "I Want You" or "Song Cry" or anything Smiths or off that pink Beck breakup album or that suicidal wrenching Jennifer Hudson number from Dreamgirls...yeah, you're maybe not going to be in that relationship long because that song is actually trying to break your heart. Anyway! In the spirit of this, which is to say, the fact that the only thing any of us single people ever got from love was an iPod full of aborted dreams...
I'm asking for a comment dump! A misery playlist with your patheticmost songs, lyrics, and how they make you feel. I.e. the part of Mariah Carey's Shake It Off, where she goes "Hold up, my phone's breakin up, lemme hang up and call the machine right back" was consistently for a good three months the sole source of mirth in my life; a moment of dumbass levity in the midst of a sea of songs about dead boyfriends and the tears of a clown.
Comments
Nothing Compares to U:
Sinead O'Conner version: can't listen to it without donning black turtleneck, gray eyeshadow and making myself cry in front of the mirror.
Prince version: good for the end of a long mushroom trip when you do that crying/detox thing.
Almost everything by Lucero.
At the risk of looking like a wuss:
Come Pick Me Up by Ryan Adams.
My fiance' does an acoustic guitar version of Otis Redding's 'I've Got Dreams' that will rip the still-beating heart from your chest.
I cry at all things Otis.
"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" doesn't upset me, but "I Know it's Over" KILLS ME. Also, "Well I Wonder?".
"Oh mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head..." How can you not LOVE that?
I Believe in You by Don Williams.
And Moe- big ups for the Wilco reference. Going to see them in Mobile, Alabama in a few weeks!
"Watching Airplanes" by Gary Allen, that damn country song that my ex was obsessed with when he knew that I was moving out here to be near him and also knew that he didn't want to date me but didn't want to hurt my feelings. Doesn't help that he's in the air force.
And, "Language of the Heart" by David Wilcox. It was me and my first love's song and I've just gotten to the point (almost 4 years later) where I can listen to it.
God nothing makes me nauseous & nostalgic like anything by The Pet Shop Boys or Erasure, thanks to the complications of my first boyfriend. I still think he's a homo. Stupid music making me lovesick and it is all his fault. Plus then I feel like a homo for responding emotionally to music I never really liked in the first place.
All things Fiona Apple, \ESPECIALLY "Limp":
"You wanna make me sick, you wanna lick my wounds, don't you, baby?
You want the badge of honor when you save my hide
But you're the one, and the way, of the day of the doom, baby
If you need my shame to reclaim your pride...
When I think of it, My fingers turn to fists!
I never did anything to you man!
No matter what I try, You beat me with your bitter lies
So call me crazy, hold me down, Make me cry, get off now, baby
It won't be long 'till you'll be lying limp in your own hands!
You feed the beast I have within me
You wave the red flag, baby you make it run run run
Standing on the sidelines, waving and grinning
You fondle my trigger, then you blame my gun."
Alanis, obvs. Maroon Five's angrier songs. Lily Allen's "Not Big". The total self-indulgent PITY ME of India. Arie's "Ready For Love". There are more!
Hold On, by Sarah McLachlan. Just made me misty now...
Oh gosh....I haven't thought about this sort of thing in so long.
Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata always makes me sad, although not in a heartbreaking kind of way. Ditto for Led Zeppelin's Bron Yur Aur.
Charlotte Gainsbourg's Somewhere Between Waking & Sleeping and Lali Puna's Darla. Not sure why....
Spain, by Kristin Hersh.
I wanted you to sleep with her and
Hate yourself instead of me
I wanted you untrue,
Hating yourself like me
After all, what am I missing
I haven't missed before,
Sucking down the precious lies
I should have swallowed way before?
And now I have to go and listen to I Feel it All by Feist to cheer myself up again.
The Temptation of Adam by Josh Ritter
Dagger Through the Heart: Sinead fucking nails this Dolly cover
There are so many more.
Northern Lad by Tori. Her voice is so hoarse in it, it's like she's been crying for hours, and it just makes me want to hunch over and weep. "Had a northern lad, well not exactly had..." UGH it gets me.
Also: there's a recent version of "Time After Time" wherein Cyndi Lauper duets with Sarah McLaghlan, and it's amazing. And makes me sad.
"I can't make you love me" - Bonnie Raitt.
I can't make you love me if you don't/
you can't make your heart feel something it won't/
here in the dark, in these final hours/
I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power/
but you won't, no you won't/
Cause I can't make you love me if you don't....
SOB
I Wanna Be Around by James Brown or Dinah Washington or just about anybody.
Green Eyes by Erykah Badu. It's the last song on Mama's Gun and it's an epic killer.
"My eyes are green cuz I eat a lot of vegetables
It ain't got nothin' to do
with your new friend . . ."
@rsr26: oh, Ryan makes me either cry or rock out country-style and pretend I live in Alabama. LOVE.
@katastic: Yeah, Fiona's cover of "I Want You" fucking kills me. Watch it on Youtube (although I'm sure you have.) I cry every time I watch it. She's amazing.
Oh, and Dolly Parton's Jolene.
Oh, and She's Leaving Home - The Beatles.
Anything off of Neutral Milk Hotel's Airplane over the Sea, but especially when he writes about the flies in her eyes
Most of the songs that make me sad aren't actually sad; I just associate them with crying my eyes out in the shower or waiting for the phone to ring, or some such. Like when my grad school BF didn't show up for days after Christmas break and didn't call and I was calling every state police HQ in the states between us with his license number to see if he'd been in a wreck: that kind of crying.
@katastic: "Never Is A Promise." That shit kills me.
how to fight loneliness by wilco
let nothing come between us by warren zevon
famous blue raincoat by leonard cohen
countless others.
@katastic: How about "Love Ridden"?
not "baby" anymore- if I need you
I'll just use your simple name
Only kisses on the cheek from now on
And in a little while, we'll only have to wave.
"snif."
@J.D.Regent: OMG, when that song comes on, I pretend that I'm kidding when I sing along all emotionally, but I'm not.
Also, "Don't Walk Away in Silence" is a good one.
Jealous Guy, John Lennon. Reminds me of many a past relationship when you are insanely in love with someone but being dragged in and out of horrible fights. Toxic love! It's like for after the fight, when you're too tired to cry any more and feeling nihilistic and emptied out.
@rsr26: Words right out of my mouth. Love the Ryan.
Also, I had an ex who thought it was cool to listen to Dave Matthews all the time...you know, back when it was cool to do it. Lamely, to this day, there are a few of his tunes that hit deep - I'll Back You Up or #41 for instance.
Versus' album Two Cents Plus Tax is my heartbreak standard, especially the song "Morning Glory."
You put away your ring
You packed up all your things
When you walk out the doorway
Can't follow you anymore
I don't want to do it again
I don't wanna be best friends
But left your own devices
You'd pluck out your own eyes
Ahhhh and Cat Power's Maybe Not.
I need to stop.
@thenwemadeout: I'll vote for that.
Jolene by Ray LaMontagne and Morning Theft By Jeff Buckley.
Carry Me Ohio by Sun Kil Moon
Tonight, by Stars. Little-known band, but a fave of my boy's. When we broke up, that song made me sob incoherently.
"I've tried telephones and old typewriters, words of love along the wires, but nothing is working tonight - please, let's make it work tonight..." Wahh.
@rednrowdy: I was just gonna say Famous Blue Raincoat! Tori Amos' version of it, though.
Okay, this is stupid, but my breakup song always was November Rain. I'd sit with the damn song on repeat and bawl and drink bottles of pink wine and eat cookie dough.
guess how much i love you by the lucksmiths. when my boyfriend moved across the country, i BAWLED TO IT on repeat for close to a month.
@jenndavo: I cried many a tear to that song in high school.
This post is going to bring back crazy memories.
fiona apple, never is a promise.
The Frames do an absolutely heart-wrenching cover of that Britney Spears song "Everytime" that is heart-breakingly beautiful. It has this quiet ethos to it that kills me, and listening to their version you can appreciate that it's actually a good and pretty song, and you're able to push thoughts of the video with Steven Dorff and Britney in the bathtub out of your head.
@rsr26: I concur on "Come Pick Me Up." I'm also fond of Ani Difranco's "Untouchable Face" and Ben Folds' Five "Selfless, Cold and Composed." Of course, Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long" is fan-fucking-tastic.
@jammiriffic: no way, one more night by stars. waaaay worse. i used put that song on to cry on purpose.
@meaghan2k:
I was listening to Josh Ritter last week on the way to work and just busted out crying. Damn that song.
My Curse byt the Afghan Whigs
can't even listen to it anymore
I have to say, since 7th grade, it's been U2's song "So Cruel":
She wears my love like a see-through dress
Her lips say one thing
Her movements something else
Oh love, like a screaming flower
Love...dying every hour...love
You don't know if it's fear or desire
Danger the drug that takes you higher
Head in heaven, fingers in the mire
Her heart is racing, you can't keep up
The night is bleeding like a cut
Between the horses of love and lust
We are trampled underfoot
Shadowlands by Ryan Adams
Most people never find a love. . . . CRUSHING.
Trouble, by Cat Stevens but more so the version by Elliott Smith
@katastic: I have a hard-ass time admitting that Fiona is a key player in my breakup mix. But she do it so well.
Eve, the Apple of My Eye - Bell X1
Gooooooo...
@thenwemadeout: Thank you. It's a an acceptance of death song, pure and simple. Then there's "One Last Cry" and "Anytime" by Brian McKnight, whom I referred to as a weak-ass pussy boy---until I got dumped and couldn't stop playing those songs.
"Better Days" by The Jayhawks...not sure why, but it just gets to me.
If Not Now Then When- Tracy Chapman@BiscuitDoughJones: Otis makes my heart break, in a good way though. Loooooove him.