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Whether you’ve recently gone through a breakup or just like listening to really sad music, the following ten songs depict the various stages of breaking up with masterful songwriting and storytelling, inviting you to reflect, reminisce, and heal.
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“Slow Fade” - Ruth B.
“Slow Fade” tells the story of a relationship slowly falling apart — musically illustrated by interspersed pauses — with excruciating honesty: “I’ve been praying that we’ll lose our love in slow fade.” Ruth B. beautifully depicts the blurry lines of this drawn-out breakup through metaphors of celestial light and color disappearing. They have “found the end of the moon and sun” amidst a “starless blue,” realizing that the relationship has lost direction and clarity, with neither person really knowing why they are staying.
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“For The Lover That I Lost” - Sam Smith
An elegy for a past relationship, this melancholy piano ballad recounts happy memories while simultaneously affirming that the separation was necessary: “I stand by all my choices / Even though I paid the cost.” The song allows you to indulge in reminiscences but also warns against idealizing memories of an ex-partner: “All of the fighting seems so sweet.” Finally, it reminds you that love lost does not equal love wasted, as you can still appreciate the time for what it was, “lay a dozen roses,” and then move on.
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“If This Is It Now” - Birdy
Another piano ballad, this song is about how relationships intertwine two people’s lives, evident particularly in small habits, and how they have to go on living their separate lives after it ends. Birdy wonders what her ex-partner is doing right now, at 9 a.m., when they used to call, and realizes that “it’s not up to me, to hear your dreams / Or be your wake up call / It’s not up to me, anymore.” The song ends with her earnestly wishing happiness for the other person and hoping that her name “never tastes of bitterness.”
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“Chewing Cotton Wool” - The Japanese House
With somber lyrics and a muffled, reverb-heavy soundscape, “Chewing Cotton Wool” illustrates how the absence of a person makes them omnipresent. Bain sings with a gentle, mournful tone that her ex-partner has become such an integral part of her that she still sees her everywhere, from “the whirlpool in the sink” to “the sound of your own voice.”
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“Nobody Knows Me Like You Do” - Birdy
The opening verse, “Last night was the third time I’ve watched you leave,” evokes a slow, messy breakup process between two people who can’t quite let go. Uncertain whether she will ever find such a connection again, Birdy reflects on her guilt and regret over the breakup: “Not sure what it was I thought I'd found once I was free.”
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“Places We Won’t Walk” - Bruno Major
In each verse, Bruno Major poetically evokes a beautiful place — “sunlight dances off the leaves / Birds of red color the trees” — only to crushingly end it with “In places we won’t walk.” The song realistically depicts what a future together might look like, even as it has become unattainable.
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“Older” - Sasha Alex Sloan
Reflecting on the divorce of her parents, Sloan sings about how getting older and making her own experiences with love led her to understand and forgive their decision: “Loving is hard, it don't always work / You just try your best not to get hurt / I used to be mad but now I know / Sometimes it's better to let someone go.” “Older” sheds light on the bigger picture: To love is to open oneself up to the possibility of heartbreak, and learning how to let go is intrinsically tied to learning how to love.
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“Blue” - Elina
With gentle guitar strokes, “Blue” paints the scene of a late summer evening that reminds Elina of “warm nights of stargazing and summers in bloom” spent with the person she loved. Though love may come and go, she realizes that everyone we’ve loved stays with us: “Truth is, though our days are through / There’s a part of me that’s a part of you.”
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“intertwined” - Arny Margret
As intricate guitar melodies interweave with Margret’s voice, she sings about still being “intertwined” with a past lover, unable to move forward: “Our pasts are intertwined / Few years and it’ll be fine.” Time indifferently moves on even as the relationship has ended, yet the finality of her loss looms over the present: “While the trees wear the weather / We’re no longer together.”
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“Not Sad Anymore” - Clara Mae
Ending the list on a lighter note, Clara Mae sings about the feeling of liberation after a suffocating relationship and the possibility of a fresh start: “I’m gonna reconnect with my old self / I like the one I was before we met.” Only after leaving the relationship does she realize how she had to change to fit into her ex-partner’s life. It’s an excellent song to dance and scream to, celebrating the moment when you’re “not sad anymore.”
—Staff writer Larissa G. Barth can be reached at larissa.barth@thecrimson.com.
