My husband likes to attribute a lot of our personality quirks to generational influences. In his eyes, we are deeply earnest, but pathologically afraid of cheesiness or sentimentality (to such a degree that almost all of our shows of affection tend to be in joke form) not because of our personalities, but the fact that our birthdates fall between 1969 and 1980. Ditto our compulsive culture cataloguing and love of satire — according to him – all of this can be traced back to belonging to ‘Generation X’.
His argument is not without merit, of course. We are all a product of our time and place. However, I often think his lack of sentimentality (or carefully hidden sentimentality) is just as likely a result of his Pennsylvanian Dutch heritage. He comes from practical sturdy people with a puritanical streak, people who rarely shed tears and never showed public affection. In contrast, I come from emotional, dramatic stock, Mormon theater people who cry unabashedly during testimony meetings and movies. So, at least in my case, my husband’s theory makes some sense. Where else did I learn to suppress my emotions if not from Liz Phair or my other Gen-Xers?
Whether it be the influence of my g-g-g-eneration or my personality, many of my favorite songs of all time are songs about heartbreak, loss, bad timing, longing and love affairs gone wrong. Sure, there are exceptions — a few sweet, but unsentimental gems I love — but I’m suspicious of shiny happy people and I tend to trust and feel more connected to the pathos of sad songs. So, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I present you with a playlist of some of my favorite songs about love gone wrong:
Foolish Love: Valentine’s Day Songs for Cynics
1. Rufus Wainwright, “Foolish Love,” Assuming a pose to protect yourself from the potentially annhilating force of love, especially one that might not be good for you.
Key Lyrics: “I will take my coffee black/Never snack/Hang with the wolves who are sheepish/Flow through the veins of town/Always frown/Me and my mistress, the princess/Oh, all for the sake of a foolish love …Cause I don’t want to hold you and feel so helpless/I don’t want to smell you and lose my senses/And smile in slow motion/With eyes in love.”
2. Nina Simone, “For All We Know,” A meditation on the transience of love or artful heartfelt rationalizing, either way, nobody is better than Simone when it comes to depicting longing.
Key Lyrics: “For all we know/ We may never meet again … I’ll hold out my hand/And my heart will be in it/ For all we know/ This may only be a dream, we come and we go/ like the ripples, likes the ripples in the stream /So, baby love me, love me tonight.”
3. Bob Dylan, “You’re Gonna Make me Lonesome …” Everything feels right, but nothing is meant to last.
Key Lyrics: “I’ve seen love go by my door /It’s never been this close before/ Never been so easy or so slow/I’ve been shooting in the dark too long/ When something’s not right, it’s wrong/You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go.”
4. Sufjan Stevens, ” Casimir Pulaski Day,” Two Bible study nerds share a lovely, but doomed first love.
Key Lyrics: “Tuesday night at the Bible study we lift our hands and pray over your body/ But nothing ever happens … In the Morning, at the top of the stairs/ When your father found out what we did that night and you told me you were scared/ Oh, the glory/ When you ran outside with your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied and you told me not to follow you.”
5. Bob Dylan, “Simple Twist of Fate,” An ode to bad timing and missed chances.
Key Lyrics: “People tell me it’s a sin to know and feel too much within/I still believe she was my twin/But I lost the ring/She was born in spring/But I was born too late/Blame it on a simple twist of fate.”
6. Amy Winehouse, “You Know I’m No Good,” Ms. Winehouse does herself wrong by staying with two bad men.
Key Lyrics: “I’m in the tub, you on the seat/Lick your lips as I soak my feet/ And then you notice little carpet burns/My stomach drop and my guts churn/You shrug and it’s the worst/Who truly stuck the knife in first.”
7. Lilly Allen, “It’s Not Fair” A lament over a boyfriend who is perfect in all ways but one.
Key Lyrics: “You know I’ve never met a man/Who’s made me feel quite so secure/He’s not like all them other boys/ They’re all so dumb and immature./There’s just one thing/That’s getting int he way/When we go up to bed/You’re just no good /It’s such a shame.”
8. Portishead, “Sour Times” The sound of longing.
Key Lyrics: “To pretend no one can find the fallacies of morning rose/ Forbidden fruit, hidden eyes, courtesies that I despise, in me /Take a ride, take a shot now/Cause nobody loves me/Its true, not like you do.”
9. Bright Eyes, “Lua,” Damaged lovers come together, but they can’t save each other.
Key Lyrics: “And I know you have a heavy heart/ I can feel it when we kiss/ So many men stronger than me have thrown their backs out trying to lift it/ But me I’m not a gamble/ You can count on me to split.”
10. PJ Harvey, “Rid of Me,” A song to remind you of your intense and scary ex.
Key Lyrics: “I’ll tie your legs/Keep you against my chest/Oh, you’re not rid of me/Yeah, you’re not rid of me/I’ll make you lick my injuries/I’m gonna twist your head off, see/ Till you say don’t you wish you never never met her?”
11. Cat Power, “Good Woman,” When loving someone means letting them go.
Key Lyrics: “I want to be a good woman/And I want for you to be a good man/ And this is why I will be leaving /And this is why I can’t see you no more.”
12. Liz Phair, “Divorce Song,” Phair’s wry and wise take on the dissolution of a relationship.
Key Lyrics: “Because it’s harder to be friends than lovers /And you shouldn’t try to mix the two/ Cause if you do it and you’re still unhappy/Than you know that the problem is you.”
13. Jeff Buckley, “Last Goodbye,” The yearning and pathos contained in Buckley’s voice will make your heart melt.
Key Lyrics: “Kiss me/ Please kiss me/ Kiss me out of desire, baby, no consolation/ Oh, you know it makes me so angry/ you know that it does/I’ll only make you cry.”
14. Nina Simone, “Do What You Gotta Do,” A clear-eyed, grown-up look at the end.
Key Lyrics: “It’s my own fault what happens to my heart/ You see, I’ve always known you’d go/ So, you just do what you gotta do / My wild, sweet love/ Though it may mean that I’ll never kiss those sweet lips again/Pay that no mind/Find that drappled dream of yours/ Come on back and see me, when you can.”
What kinds of songs make you feel the love?
“Carefully hidden sentimentality” – that is what would define my husband. When he wants to show a little love through music, he plays “Punk Rock Girl” by the Dead Milkmen.
I’m an early gen x-er, but I see this trend all the way back in the music I grew up to. When I was little, the older crowd was singing about “Jessie’s Girl” (pining after a friend’s girlfriend), and when I was in high school U2’s “With or Without You” (torn up about a relationship) ended our dances.
Thanks for the play list.
I’m going to make this a Spotify playlist, like your ‘end of year’ post, Heidi! :)
I love the Dylan song already, though. What is a love song without the awareness of the road ahead?
An infatuation song, I suppose! And that can be cool too, in a different way…
What the hell is “cherished”?
Okay, guys. Lest Karin Williams be presumed to be an internet “troll,” let me explain.
Karin is my sister. My two sisters and I and our three husbands were playing some kind of newlywed game years ago. One of the questions asked you to identify what verb your spouse would use to characterize his/her feelings for you.
So I gave my answer and then Brent was supposed to guess what I had said. Or something like that. The correct answer was “cherished.” As soon as Brent heard it, he looked totally confused and said: “Cherished? What the hell is ‘cherished’?” Everyone laughed and laughed–the husbands particularly, if I recall . . . and now we rib Brent over that repeatedly at family get-togethers.
Ooh Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye”… my most favorite sad love song. “This is our last embrace/Must I dream and always see your face?”. Seeing as how I spent the majority of my pre-teen/teen/early 20s in an unabashed, never-ending cycle of unrequited love, these songs always spoke to me, reassuring me that I wasn’t alone in my heartbreak-of-the-moment. The first memory of have of that feeling is listening to George Michael’s “Kissing a Fool” during middle-school dances. Genuinely tragic times.
oh heather- you are my heartbreak twin! i love all of these. here are my additions: joan armatrading, the weakness in me/ jolie holland, damn shame and do you?/ cat power, wild is the wind/ nina simone, lilac wine (gives me shivers everytime), david dondero, rubber tree cane and rothko chapel.
here is the rothko video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMLlp_7yNNc
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