Heartbreakers
By Liz Biggs
Some people like upbeat happy songs, like Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine” or “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. Those songs don’t make me happy; they make me suspicious. Like — are they faking it? How can anyone be that happy?
Me, I like a heart-wrenching sad song. On a cold rainy day, there is nothing better than a song that rips your heart out. A sad song assures you that there are people in this world way sadder than you — that heartbreak and deep sadness are no big deal.
Alfred Tennyson wrote, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” way back in the 1800s, but that dude knew his stuff. If you haven’t had your heart crushed, stomped on and shattered, then you truly haven’t lived. So, since February is American Heart Month, I will share a few of my favorites from my Heartbreaker playlist:
“Love Hurts,” written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant (what a name; wish I had used that for my first-born son!), is quite possibly the saddest song ever written. Many artists have covered this great song, but none are sadder than the like-butter voice of Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris singing harmony. The fact that he died a tragic morphine-overdose death at age 27 makes it even more heart-wrenching. I feel his pain every time I listen to it: “Love is like a stove, burns you when it’s hot.” Ouch.
Matthew Sweet’s “You Don’t Love Me” — the line “You can’t see how I matter in this world” hurts the most. Like a dagger in thy soul.
Bob Dylan’s “I Threw It All Away” — the line “Once I had mountains in the palm of my hand” — what an incredible visual! What powerful force crumbles mountains? Hmmm, a painful one.
Meatloaf’s “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” (written by Todd Rundgren!) — Laugh all you want but being wanted and needed but not loved is no laughing matter. Meatloaf breaks my heart every time I hear him sing this song. Just imagine if he was singing these words to you, how sad you’d be. The fact that he is singing them to someone else, not me, makes me want to do cartwheels across the front lawn.
“This Feeling” by Alabama Shakes – this song is forever etched in my mind as the background music to the final scene in Phoebe Waller Bridge’s “Fleabag,” where she tells the hot priest she loves him and he replies, “It’ll pass.” Ouch, another nail in my heart. The opening line, “I just kept hoping…” is like Pandora’s box; hope is the last thing left in Pandora’s box after she opens it and releases the other evils into the world. Hope is a very dangerous thing, just ask Lana Del Ray. And add her song, “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have” to the playlist.
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division is the most depressing song from the ’80s. I recently discovered an even sadder acoustic cover of this song by June Tabor and the Oysterband which made me realize what a great song this is. Rips your heart to shreds every time you hear it.
“Walking on a Wire” by Richard and Linda Thompson — “Too many steps to take, too many spells to break, too many nights awake…” — they wrote and recorded this song while going through an epic and painful divorce which makes these powerful lyrics hit even harder. Ouch.
Joni Mitchell’s “River” is the saddest Christmas song ever. Way sadder than Elvis’s “Blue Christmas.” I cry every time I hear it.
Add “Never Going Back Again” by Fleetwood Mac, “Long Long Time” by Linda Ronstadt, “And I Fell Back Alone” by World Party, “The First Cut Is the Deepest” written by Cat Stevens/sung by Rod Stewart, and after you curl yourself up in a ball and cry yourself a river (not a bad thing; hey, at least you’ll feel something; it’s better than being bored), you will feel so happy because your life is much better than the sad people singing these songs.
