Yet another music thread -- Breakup songs

"Burning Inside" by Ministry

 

Marshall Tucker Band...I have to be in the mood for them, but when I am, they're great. Country, rock...with a little jazz thrown in on occasion, as on "This Ol' Cowboy."

After a plate of breakfast enchiladas and about a pint of coffee, I'm thinking more clearly...

Leonard Cohen. He's perfect at capturing the pathos of a situation without wallowing in self-pity...maybe some of his first songs have a little youthful bitterness, but his later works excel at expressing heartbreak without nihilism or ill wishes. And there's humor. You can be sure that any Jewish guy who published a book for poems entitled "Flowers for Hitler" has a sense of humor.

"Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" is genius, as is "There Ain't No Cure for Love." There's "Everybody Knows" and "Famous Blue Raincoat" for infidelity. And of course, the ultimate we're-over-but-I'll-always-love-you song, "Hallelujah"...an intellectual pop expression of the sentiments from Garth Brooks' "the Dance."

 

Joe Ely's got some good weepers like "She Never Spoke Spanish To Me".

In another vein: "Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye" by Charlie Daniels.

And there's probably never been an artist who could sell a song like B.B. King as anyone who's ever heard him do "How Blue Can You Get" can attest.

 

Uncle Tupelo

I don't know what you've been through
You might think that I don't care
But I do

And I've tried to understand
I've tried to understand your abuse
But you've got no excuse
And there's no use in lovin'
Anyone who hates themself

You keep coming back
So I hold you for a little while
But I always go when I can't take your sad smile
'Cause I can't stand it when you get so intense
And it's all a part of our bad inheritance
And there's no sense in lovin'
Anyone

Won't you come back for a while
You could see exactly what you've always meant to me
But you don't wanna know
You don't wanna know

And you don't know what I've been through
And if I think that you don't care
You probably do
And there's no sense in lovin'
Anyone who hates themself

 

"Happy Now?" -- No Doubt (a great angry fuck-you song)

 

You, sir, are a king among men.

Some others:
"Call And Answer," Barenaked Ladies
"The Heart Of The Matter," Don Henley
"I'll Never Get Over You (Getting Over Me)," Expose (here, take my man card)
"You Won't See Me Cry," Wilson Phillips (make sure to rip up the card)
"End Of The Road," Boyz II Men (lay off me, I was nursing a broken heart when this song came on every eight minutes in the summer of '92)

 

Does it get anymore heartbreaking than this?

She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin' to forget
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind
Until the night

He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away her memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees
We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said I'll love her till I die
And when we buried him beneath the willow
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby

The rumors flew but nobody knew how much she blamed herself
For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath
She finally drank her pain away a little at a time
But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind
Until the night

She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees
We found her with her face down in the pillow
Clinging to his picture for dear life
We laid her next to him beneath the willow
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby

 

Note to self: Do not go to Pallister for cheering up.

 

One that came through the iPod a few minutes ago: "If My Heart Was A Car" - Old 97's

 

Hey, I have my moments.