Bitter Breakup Songs

Recently, I started thinking about my favorite genre of songs: the breakup song. I’m not talking about the sappy, regretful, where-did-I-go-wrong? type of song (“If I should stay, I would only be in your waaaay . . . and I will always love you--ooooh . . .”).

No, I mean the type of bitter break up songs (I’ll call them BBS) that guys tend to write. The no, really, it’s not me, it’s you approach to breaking up. They don’t internalize, or call up their friends and cry about their faults – and then set the whole thing to music. If a guy breaks up with a girl, clearly, the music tells us, there’s something wrong with the girl. If a girl breaks up with a guy? There’s something wrong with the girl. And, you know, that can make for some awesome put the windows down and sing at the top of your lungs all the way down the highway music.

One exception to this rule is “Grenade,” by Bruno Mars. Bruno, dude, man up! I would catch a grenade for you? Really – what is that? But even that song has that desperate, psychotic vibe to it, like, This woman has driven me to the point where I would contemplate various really violent forms of death, and write a song about it. That’s a woman I don’t ever want to meet (i.e., there’s something wrong with the girl).

The king of the BBS, for me, is Ceelo Green’s “‘Forget’ You.” (I put that word in quotes because that’s the radio-friendly title.) Where was this tiny round man when the guy I was going to go to the senior prom with started flirting with another girl at a party? I can just imagine my seventeen-year-old self bopping around in my pale lavender off the shoulder gown in the middle of the country club dance floor, singing in my strong soprano: I see you driving ‘round town with the guy I love, and I’m like, forget you!

Okay, maybe not, but the forty-five year old me can certainly go to town on it in her fantasy.

How about all those popular boys who never, ever gave me a glance in high school? Oh, I’ve been to my twenty-fifth reunion, you guys, and I know exactly what you look like. I saw your double takes at my fabulousness as I strode across the room to claim my gin and tonic at the bar. And, why, yes, I do still have that really great job and that awesome husband. The soundtrack to that particular night? The All-American Rejects’ “Gives You Hell.”

Tomorrow you'll be thinking to yourself
Yeah, where did it all go wrong?
But the list goes on and on
Truth be told I miss you
And truth be told I'm lying
When you see my face
Hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell
When you walk my way
Hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell

Or Keith Urban, who doesn’t find his ex’s cute qualities all that cute anymore: Take your cat and leave my sweater, ’cuz we’ve got nothing left to weather, in fact, I’ll feel a whole lot better, but you’ll think of me.

Not that women can’t do the BBS well, when they put their minds to it. Right up there with Ceelo’s “‘Forget’ You” is Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable.” I mean, really:

I can have another you in a minute

Matter of fact, he’ll be here in a minute . . .

Now, that’s cold. I like the urban smoothness of it, that certainty that she could just walk down any crowded street and find a newer, better, updated model immediately. But there’s also a part of me that groks the down and dirty, malevolently violent mayhem of Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.” Girl follows the guy to a bar, keys his car, slashes his tires, and rips up his leather seats, all the while hilariously mocking the bimbo he’s cheating on her with:

Right now, she’s prob’ly up doing some

white trash version of Shania karaoke.

Right now, she’s prob’ly saying, “I’m drunk,”

and he’s a-thinkin’ that he’s gonna get lucky.

Right now, he’s prob’ly puttin’ on three dollars’ worth

of that bathroom cologne . . .

Yes, she commits a couple of minor felonies, but I’m rooting for her all the way.

When Alanis Morissette tells her ex, “I’m very happy for you both,” I pretty sure she’s being insincere, especially since the balance of “You Oughtta Know” is dripping with malice. Dude, I wouldn’t eat that box of chocolates she sent you if I were you.   Or sweet little Taylor Swift, offhandedly threatening to tell her ex’s friends that he’s gay. The forty-five-year-old me would definitely do something like that.

Why am I thinking these breakup thoughts?  Oh, I’m not planning on leaving Rev anytime soon (or poisoning his food).  But there comes a point when you look at your life -- a job, a relationship, an expectation -- and say, You know what, it’s not me, it's you, and I'm breaking up with you.  

You know what, 2012, I didn’t like you all that much.  I'm kicking you to the curb, buh-bye.  I deserved better than what you dished out, so I’m trash-canning you.  As my guy Keith Urban sang:

It took a while for her to figure out
That she could run
But when she did
She was
Long gone, long gone.
(“Stupid Boy”)