# Your Favourite Break Up Songs



## StephenTC (Apr 24, 2014)

What Break Up songs stand out from the pack emotionally and musically?

My top two picks:

And So It Goes - Billy Joel






Can We Still Be Friends? - Todd Rungren

sing it with me now... laa laa la la laa laa la la la. Can we still be friends?


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## Posie (Aug 18, 2013)

Queen - Another One Bites the Dust

Bon Jovi - You Give Love a Bad Name


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## Perotin (May 29, 2012)

Irma Thomas - Breakaway (maybe it's an anti-break-up song?)






BY THE TIME I GET TO PHOENIX, here sung by Nick Cave,


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Garbage - Cup of coffee.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Here's a few heart-rending soul numbers






































There's some rippers in there - about halfway through the ipod. Enjoy!


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

Nina Simone ~ Lilac Wine






John Martyn & The Guy Barker Quintet ~ You Don't Know What Love Is


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Also by Queen: I Want To Break Free. I'm not normally a fan, but that song nails the feeling of disillusionment in an upbeat funny way, plus the video of Freddie in drag doing the hoovering is priceless.

Leonard Cohen: Humbled in Love. One of the best songs about commitment phobia.

Richard Hawley: Valentine. One of those old fashioned, heart on the sleeve type of ballads which I'm slightly embarrassed to be moved by, but moved I certainly am.

John McCormack: Molly Brannigan. The semi-comic folk song about a naïve young chap whose girlfriend leaves him 'alone for to die.' John gives it just the right mix of comedy and pathos and his phrasing is out of this world. Plus, who wouldn't love a lyric that rhymes 'Alexander' with 'salamander'?

Al Jolson: Broken Doll. A catchy vaudeville ragtime number from circa 1916 which was also recorded by Fernando de Lucia under the title Bambola Infranta. Incongruous but very good, and well worth seeking out on YouTube!


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Hall & Oates - She's Gone. Original album version, not the single edit. Not really an H&O fan but this is a beaut - taken from what is said to be their most diverse album, Abandoned Luncheonette.

Love in Vain - Robert Johnson. Rolling Stones did a great cover of it on the Let It Bleed album, but my favourite by them is from the live Get Yer Ya-Yas Out.

(I Know) I'm Losing You - The Temptations. Good versions by Rod Stewart and Rare Earth, too.

Please Don't Go - K.C. & The Sunshine Band. Slightly longer version from the Do You Wanna Go Party? album. I am not including the covers by Double You/KWS which knock all the emotion out of it just so it can sound good in clubland.

Days - The Kinks. Gorgeous song earmarked for the Village Green Preservation Society concept but eventually released as a stand-alone single.

For No One - The Beatles. Macca on top of his creamy vocal form.


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## Perotin (May 29, 2012)

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Gloria Gaynor's song I will survive as of yet.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)




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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I am not a fan of breakup songs because those are too depressing.

But I do like George Benson's song Face It Boy It's Over which is a great jazz breakup song.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

One of the most covered songs of all time:


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

I would suggest
Cee-Lo Green - F##k You


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

As neurotic and unpleasant as I generally am, I've never experienced a break up -- I married my first serious girlfriend. Some time ago, I met a schizophrenic man whose condition had been triggered by a teenage break-up. It was an interesting conversation.

Anyway, this could be a great break-up song...


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Not a band I listen to much anymore, but a song I still think is good to this day and that should be mentioned here - Guns n' Roses - _November Rain_.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Not a big pop fan. I turn to the blues for this type of material.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

American prog-rock band Echolyn, with the title track from their 2005 CD "The End is Beautiful".

Great melody, which I believe is a classical music quote.


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

I figure I outta censure this tune -- a favorite one at parties around here:








> Stole the rent and drank all my JD
> She went and hijacked my brand new car
> I say AC, she says DC
> The damned ---- is just too bizarre
> ...


Let us hope all break-ups are this amiable.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

^
^

Blackie Lawless - a silver-tongued cavalier if ever there was one... :lol:


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)




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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

From prog rock:

"Trilogy," Emerson, Lake & Palmer






And if the subject is the breakup of bands, then:

"The Great Deceiver" and "Lament" by King Crimson (_Starless and Bible Black_, 1974)

The Great Deceiver: 




Lament live:


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> From prog rock:
> 
> "Trilogy," Emerson, Lake & Palmer
> 
> ...


Nice variation. I'd add to those Ballad of Mott The Hoople (March 26 1972, Zurich), looking back on the band's brief split before being unexpectedly resuscitated by Bowie - great lyrics by Ian Hunter.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I can't remember many songs at the moment about a break up.
The only one I can think of is this very depressive one made by Simon Joyner called "the house" (he sounds a lot like Leonard Cohen):





She drops an ice-cube in her drink
I pour mine into the sink
She'd like to burn a hole right through me
The way she stares so intently
This must be love
Both of us have fallen

She slaps the left side of my face
Now I've been put back in my place
I'm supposed to be disgraced
But it feels like TV
Is this really me
When did I lose my body

She fills a pillowcase with pills and perfume
She takes her clothes out of our room
She breaks everything she sees
Everything she can see
That just leaves me
For I've become invisible

She starts the car and drops over the hill
Now the house is awfully still
The house is awful and still
But if I ask the walls to fall they will
And soon winter will arrive
And the snow will find me hiding


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Well we'd broken up for good just an hour before, uh-uh-uhhh-uh-uh-hhhh-uh-uh

Also, By The Time I Get to Phoenix has great lyrics. I like Sinatra's version.


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## Posie (Aug 18, 2013)

Adding to mine:

Shakira - Te aviso, te anuncio

Rammstein - Zerstӧren (especially the ending)


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> From prog rock:
> 
> "Trilogy," Emerson, Lake & Palmer
> 
> ...


Nice! I was going to mention KC, but Trilogy is a nice pull!

More from Prog.

Seems like Peter Hammill (Van Der Graff Generator) my be the king of breakup songs:

Alice (Letting Go)
(On Tuesdays she used to do) Yoga
Other Old Cliches
Eat my Words, Bite my Tongue
The Habit of the Broken Heart
Other Old Cliches
Slender Threads


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2014)

Simon Moon said:


> Nice! I was going to mention KC, but Trilogy is a nice pull!
> 
> More from Prog.
> 
> ...


...and...

Lost

(from H to He)


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

One of my faves.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

"Sabato pomeriggio" (Saturday Afternoon), by Claudio Baglioni (1975):


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