Breaking up with a Song

Breakups are a natural part of life. In addition, they also alter it completely.
As we spend countless days getting to know one person and grow comfortable around them, sometimes, if we’re lucky, we fall in love with them. In giving ourselves entirely to one person, we also give them a piece of us. When our relationship ends, in addition to a pain that truly feels like someone is stabbing us in the heart, we toss out any reminders of the person who broke us mentally and physically. We stop going to places that remind us of that person and completely stop listening to musicians that we once loved in some cases, such as mine.

When I fell in love in 2017, David Bowie and Talking Heads were staples of mine, and I shared them with my partner. Yet, at the end of 2018, 2019, and, lastly, at the beginning of 2020, I skipped songs like “This Must Be The Place” and “Starman” every time they came on. Hearing songs I shared with my ex in public sent me into a frenzy of what “could have been” and “what was.” I stopped enjoying Piano Man and still grow somber every time I hear it in a bar. Or every time I see a drunk man screaming the words, “Sing us a song, you’re the Piano Man,” as I think about a time that seems so recent and yet so long ago, singing and dancing to it with someone I loved.

These songs have become even as painful as the actual breakup, something I cannot get away from, something that follows me into every bar in New York City.

Although I listened to Talking Heads and Bowie before my relationship began, my ex-boyfriend’s mutual love for them is why, to this day, I can’t listen to them without thinking of him. Something about his appreciation for those artists made them all the more important. Since we have ended, “This Must Be the Place” and “Starman” have become songs I cannot stand listening to. Songs that I once loved now made me cringe, and still, although I have healed almost entirely, still make my heart twist just a little.

When I think about music that has shaped me and impacted me so much that I want to share it with the people I am closest to, I think of three aspects of music sharing.

Discovery
In the beginning, a song appeals to us and makes us feel something, whether that be joy, sorrow, or love. Something switches “on” in our mind, and this makes us feel alive. The music speaks to us. It moves through us. It becomes part of our lives. We think to ourselves, “this is amazing. How can anyone write something like this?” “How can this song be a real thing?”

Repetition
When we find a song that makes us feel something, we then listen to it over and over again. During this stage, we learn every word, every chord, every change in tone. We develop an emotional tie to the song. The tie reminds us of someone, or we think of someone who needs to hear the song, which turns into passing it on.

Passing it on
When a song is so precious to us, we want to pass it along. But not to just anyone. Not everyone is deserving of the song we have just found. We want to share our new song with the people we care about. We want the song we have weaved into our personality to affect the people we care about the same way it affects us. If we are lucky, the people we share it with feel a strong emotional connection to the song too. Sharing a song so precious to you bonds you to someone.

This cycle of loving a song is how music begins to become a part of a relationship. When the relationship ends, all of your and your former lover’s favorite songs become a reminder of your relationship, which turned sour or could not stand up to the tests life threw your way.

But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Growing up, various musicians surrounded me. Although I always knew who Bob Dylan was, I never listened to him on my own until I got my heart wholly and utterly broken for the first time.

“The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” comforted me when I felt alone. Dylan’s voice and words moved me.
“Girl from the North Country” helped me see the beauty in the lost love. In his words, I found that even Bob Dylan also had a great love that he too lost. Dylan’s words helped me see that I wasn’t alone. He also helped me put to rest the hate and resentment I felt towards my ex and appreciate him for what he was.

At the same time, I also began listening to Fleetwood Mac.

From the breakup of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks to the divorce of the McVies, Mick Fleetwood’s marriage was ending and ultimately his affair with Stevie Nicks; I found “Rumors” to be the ultimate breakup album. Raw emotion, real heartbreak, anger, hurt, all of the pain that comes with losing a part of you when your lover leaves, is in every song on the Rumors album. The extreme loss is particularly apparent in the songs written by Stevie Nicks.
In every moment I spent listening to her words, I began to heal myself.
“Silver Springs” gave me a song to cry to, “Dreams” helped me realize the breakup was my “ex’s loss,” and with both “Gold Dust Woman” and “Rhiannon,” I realized I would be okay on my own.

Bob Dylan and Fleetwood Mac led me to begin listening to artists I had always known but never thought to listen to, all brought on by heartache. My ex once said that I changed his music taste, thus changing his life. I found that our breakup changed my taste in music as well. In losing love, I was awakened to different genres that I had never explored before. The pain my relationship instilled in me made my music taste more encompassing and ultimately more fulfilling. My need to find new music, any music, that He and I had not listened to led to the discovery of new books, new movies, new experiences. Although I still felt the pain, still had not forgotten my lost love, I became even more in love with music as a result of losing someone who meant the world to me.

Music is the way we relate to others. Music is how we find that we are not alone in the way we feel, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Finding a song that says so beautifully what you can not formulate into words allows you to understand the song and make it your own.

I share Talking Heads and David Bowie with someone who taught me a lot about love and pain; pure happiness and utter sorrow. These experiences shaped me into who I have become in the aftermath. For that, I am grateful.

However, Stevie is all mine.