It’s weird, you know, like I’m doing basically fine in re:breakup woes, but there isn’t much going on for me besides the near constant scanning of my internal emotional state. I must be a bucket of fun to be around lately, let me tell you, because even though I’m sipping my cranberry juice thoughtfully and nodding my head at your very interesting story and laughing in all the right places and making those funny faces I make all the time, I’m also running a constant diagnostic. In my head it’s like this: “Self, how do you feel about this new shirt you just got on sale in re: breakup? Helping or hurting?” and “I seem to be lying prone with my head hanging off my bed looking upside down at all the postcards I bought to decorate my room with; how do I feel about that, in the context of my broken heart?” You know? If anyone mentions something to do with relationships I do this really awful thing lately where I widen my eyes and raise my eyebrows in a manner that’s supposed to mean something like, Girl, I totally feel you but which I fear actually comes off more like, I am totally not paying attention to your very interesting story about your very nice and attentive and loving boyfriend right now. I am so sorry. I suck sometimes.
Anyway, everyone knows that one of the things you have to do when you break up is make the breakup mix CD. I know there are several schools of thought on this practice, and that some people are actually anti-breakup CD, but I’m going to come right out and advocate for the Go Ahead And Wallow method. I mean, you know. As long as you’re still going to work and calling your mom and petting your cat for most of your day and haven’t made any sort of shrine to your ex or anything, I think the creation of a breakup CD allows you to channel your tearful late night obsession with What Went Wrong into something useful, right? And I think we can all agree that a well-mixed breakup CD is a thing of beauty, and that it can help you through the rough times and that you can always pass it along to a friend who’s just broken up when you don’t need it anymore, unless of course all your friends are like, married or something now. If that’s the case, you can just hang onto it and let the archaeologists unearth it one day and give it a place of honor in the museum exhibit they create about you one day.
Anyway, you may have guessed that I myself am working on a breakup mix CD as we speak and I’m having a little trouble with it. Because this can’t be just any breakup mix CD. It is my mission, in fact, to create the greatest breakup mix CD the world has ever known, and this is where you, my cherished readers, come in. I only have nine songs so far and I need you to email me AS SOON AS DIARY-X IS UP AGAIN, HELLO, and tell me your ultimate breakup songs and why I should buy them from iTunes or make my friends lend me the CDs from whence they originate. This is like the evil twin of Erin’s awesome Ultimate Wedding Songs list. There are just as many people breaking up as are getting married, right? We need CDs too.
“But Chiara,” I hear you say. “I have never broken up with anyone.” Okay. Fine. “I am in a stable loving relationship with an individual who thinks I hung the moon and thus there is no place for the breakup song genre in my life.” To you, I smile and nod my head respectfully and then I make the W with my hands to indicate “Whatever” because while I totally believe you that you’re in this fantastic relationship and while I think that is completely cool, I also know that you have a secret stash of breakup songs in your head. Not that you’re making a breakup mix CD your ownself, of course not. It’s just that, you know, some songs are really good and they happen to be breakuppy in nature…and you don’t want those to go to waste here, do you? Of course you don’t. So pony up, babies.
Here’s what I have so far…you will see that my taste runs to mopey breakup song instead of angry breakup song, so keep that in mind. My housemate’s awesome friend made her a great breakup mix CD with songs by angry punk bands called stuff like “Fuck The Pain Away,” but dude, I don’t know if I’m there yet, you know? So keep that in mind, please. And without further ado I present to you the beginnings of The Breakup Mix CD That Ought To Make You Want To Break Up Your Ownself Just So You Can Listen To It.
1) Nothing Better by The Postal Service.
This is a song wherein one of the singers says something about making charts and graphs to illustrate why the breakup happened. Man, if I had a nickel…
2) So Done With You by Dolour
Okay, this is a song that was in my mental Breakup Songs list before I ever broke up. The title alone pretty much says it all, as well as the line, “ I would rather die/Than live through this hell again.” Simple yet effective, don’t you think? Plus the band’s name is Dolour, how great is that. Even though it’s just the one guy so really he should just go by his name, but whatever. Also, I won this CD from KEXP during pledge week one year. Excellent. Thanks for helping out, KEXP!
Also on this same album there is a song that includes the following lyrics: “Why why why why why/How how how how how.” Yes, exactly. Exactly.
3) I’m Bound to Pack It Up by The White Stripes
A little less with the clangy-clangy than many White Stripes songs, and also very sad. The songs just like, “Baby, I still love you but I gots to go and that’s just how it is.”
4) The Best Deception by Dashboard Confessional
I got this from Hannah’s CD she made for the one year anniversary of her journal. I think it remains the only emo song I know, and as such I feel confident it’s an excellent representative of the genre. I like the part where he screams.
5) Judas My Heart by Belly.
I broke up once or twice in the nineties, can you tell? The best part of this song is the line “Where I live, there’s a lady who walks everywhere on her hands/She won’t go where her feet want to take her.” Anyone else feel me there? Yeah, totally.
6) Untitled by The Cure
DON’T JUDGE ME.
7) Missing You by Jem
“Iiiiiiiiiiiii miiiiiiiiissssss yooooooouuuuuuuuuuuu.” Again, simple yet effective.
8) Your Sweet Voice by The Reindeer Section
Sniff.
9) I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You by Colin Hay
This is from the Garden State soundtrack, otherwise known as Love Songs From Zach Braff to
Amy and also Chiara and, if I may speak for her, Sundry, too. This song is awesome because while it’s veryeffective (at making you blubber uncontrollably), it’s not simple. It’s about how everything is fine, in general, and I’m drinking good coffee and going out to dinner and doing everything right but I still just don’t think…well, you know. That I’ll ever get over it. Not simple at all.
So that’s what I have so far, and I am counting, depending on you, my gorgeous, talented, nice-hair- having readers, to make this puppy into something great. I know we can do it; we can make a breakup CD that will bring the listener to her or his knees in agony, that will cause spontaneous weeping in anyone who happens to hear one chord of one song, that will drag anyone who listens to it through all seven stages of grief, on shuffle. Breakup songs of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your pain!