A couple years ago, I had three big romantic breakups all within the space of about 12 weeks. I went from poly-saturated to poly-parched in the blink of an eye and it hit me like a load of bricks.
Something about these breakups hitting in the midst of a global pandemic made their weight even heavier. Like everyone, I’m still processing 2020/1, and for me that means I’m still processing the end of these relationships.
The impact of these breakups on my life is especially present in my Spotify wrap up for the year. Now there’s a lot to be said about the practice of the Spotify year-end wrap up, it’s pretty evil-genius that this tech company has figured out a way to make “we’re keeping track of your shit” a fun interactive thing for users but, that’s another little essay.
Anyway, behold my top 5 songs for 2022. Because I know my own listening trends, I know that these were songs that I listened to multiple times in a row on multiple occasions. They all also happen to be on my breakup playlist.
All bangers, all heartbreak anthems for the ages.
#5 Kesha - Praying
Not every breakup has to be marked by acrimony but mine certainly were! When I was fresh out and full of self-righteousness, few things felt better than waling along with Kesha about how “we both know all the truth I could tell, I’ll just say this is ‘I wish you farewell.’”
What really got me was the feeling of having given so much of myself to just try and make shit work, and not feeling like my efforts were appreciated. Feeling like I sacrificed so much of what I needed, and accepted so much treatment that I found utterly unacceptable for the sake of the greater good (the relationship) only to be told that it wasn’t enough.
Looking back on it, of course the jokes on me because allowing yourself to be treated badly in order to appease your partner is a major self-own. The only one who would end up looking bad if I were to reveal the “truths” Kesha and I sang about would be me for putting up with bogus treatment for so long.
#4 Adele - Turning Tables
I grew up in a family of yellers and I hated it. I know we’re not supposed to “tone police” but for me, yelling is an instant trigger. I find that when people start yelling, they stop communicating. The pace of the conversation picks up, the intensity of emotion heightens, people stop actively listening, and next thing you know you’re saying shit you don’t even mean just to try and get a good one in.
And yet I certainly did my share of shouting.
When Adele croons “God only knows what we’re fighting for, all that I say, you always say more,” I feel that. I hate fighting. It’s rarely productive and inevitably creates new wounds that now have to be addressed on top of whatever the fight was initially about.
“I can’t give you the heart you think you gave me” I’d sing, imagining I’d had the presence of mind to come up with such an eloquent line whilst telling my partner that I was done.
#3 Outkast - Ms. Jackson
Regardless of the circumstances surrounding a breakup, one emotion that always seems to come with it in some form or another is regret. Regret that you couldn’t hang onto the good times when they were there, regret over things said in anger, regret that you didn’t leave sooner, regret that you got left… For me dealing with three breakups and three relationships, I wash awash in the stuff.
“I wish I could become a magician to abacadabra all the sadder thoughts of me, thoughts of she, thoughts of he, asking what happened to the feeling that her and me had” sounds a lot like the many hours I spent pondering what went wrong. I’m not much of a pray-er but every time I hear the line “I pray so much about it need some knee pads,” I think to myself, what is listening to the same song 5 times in a row if not a prayer?
#2 Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball
I’ve always joked that this song tells my story but reader, it’s not a joke. “I came in like a wrecking ball, I never hit so hard in love, all I wanted was to break your walls, all you ever did was wreck me” might as well be my battlecry.
Being loved by me is kind of like being hit by a sledgehammer of affection and attention. I want to know everything about you— what you think about in moments of stillness, the music that moves you, the fears that halt you, the shit that has stuck with you, I want to know it all.
And when things didn’t work out well, “I never meant to start a war, I just wanted you to let me in, and instead of using force, I guess I should have let you win,” pretty much sums up how I felt after things ended.
I’m trying to be less of a wrecking ball going forward, to remember that when it’s right, I won’t have to sledgehammer my way into someone’s heart in order to achieve the kind of intimacy that I’m looking for.
#1 Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
Remember when you were in middle school and you heard a song that just like perfectly encapsulated your angst and it was all you wanted to listen to? And suddenly your bedroom walls were covered in magazine clippings of the artist, and you found yourself bringing them up all the time because now the song had transcended being “just a song” but was fully a part of your identity?
Well at the ripe age of 38 I fell adolescently in love with this song. I learned how to play it on the ukulele for fuck’s sake. There are no pictures of her on my walls but the intensity is there.
I still remember the first time I heard Billie Eilish sing “I don’t relate to you no, cuz I’d never treat me this shitty, you made me hate this city!” I was instantly covered in goosebumps and thought “she’s talking about my life” in a way I hadn’t since my teenage years.
Every time I scream-sing “I don’t talk shit about you on the internet never told anyone anything bad, cuz that shit’s embarrassing you were my everything and all that you did was make me fucking sad!” I feel it like a lightning bolt.
Because I *DON’T* talk shit about [redacted] on the internet even though that’s where we lived out so much of our relationship. And it *IS* embarrassing to have once been so onlinely in love and now not even speak to each other anymore.
I used to think that compulsively listening to the same songs over and over was just a “me” thing and was somehow a symptom of an unwell mind but now, thanks to the age of internet oversharing, I know that lots of people do it and apparently it has something to do with my Taurus moon?
Listening to these breakup jams has definitely been a part of my healing process and with each listen they lose a little power. In time, they might even go back to simply being songs I like to listen to, rather than songs that remind me of aspects of my breakups.
It’s fun to work myself up into a pique as I belt out my indignation, but once the song ends the emotional fervor ends with it. And It wasn’t all scream-singing about my broken heart this year anyway.
If you look at my top artists overall, I still listen to Beyonce more than anything else and that means there was joy happening. At a time when joy seems to be in short supply, I’ll take it where I can get it.
Here’s a link to my Spotify breakup playlist if you feel like working yourself up, enjoy!
-d