Four months ago, when I was still crying every day, I wrote a short piece called "The Five Stages of Heartbreak," applying the Kübler-Ross model of the grieving process to the experience of getting dumped. When I wrote it I wasn't nearly so far along in the process as I imagined myself to be, but I am immodestly pleased how well it holds up in the light of a little more perspective. Of course, writing was one of the things that helped me get through those first difficult weeks and months. Music was another. It was in June that I discovered the great deals and rich variety to be had from Amazon's MP3 Downloads department, and I immediately began accumulating songs that spoke to my moods and conditions. Listening to the soothing melodies and the sad lyrics, hearing my rough-edged pain reflected in a thing of beauty, helped ease me through the hard times and remember how much there still was to make life worth living.
This playlist includes many of the songs that sustained and nurtured me through the loss of my first love, as well as a few others that in one way or another capture the unique feelings of each stage of grief. I present them in the conventional order suggested by Kübler-Ross (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), though my own journey through the stages took a somewhat different order, starting with bargaining and denial, passing through depression to anger, and coming finally to a place of acceptance. I've chosen three songs for each stage, with one bonus song for acceptance - which is, of course, the longest stage, the one that never truly ends.
TRACK LISTING:
Don't Speak (No Doubt)
It's No Good (Depeche Mode)
Someday Out of the Blue (Elton John)
Harden My Heart (Quarterflash)
Smile (Lily Allen)
I Survived You (Clay Aiken)
Everything I Own (Bread)
Pour Que Tu M'Aimes Encore (Céline Dion)
If Ever You're in My Arms Again (Peabo Bryson)
Just When I Needed You Most (Kurt Darren)
The End of the World (Skeeter Davis)
Look What You've Done (Bread)
Missing You (Amy Grant)
Please Remember Me (Tim McGraw)
Someone That I Used to Love (Barbra Streisand)
The Dance (Garth Brooks)
I'm not going to go into too much detail on what these songs mean to me. I already told my story. Instead, I prefer to let the songs speak for themselves.
Denial:
Don't Speak - One of the best breakup songs ever, this one is self-conscious in its denial of the inevitable: "I can't believe / This could be the end / It looks as though you're letting go / And if it's real / Well, I don't want to know . . . Don't tell me 'cause it hurts."
It's No Good - It's embarrassing to admit now, but I went through a phase after my breakup where I took everything as some kind of Sign from the Universe. Bombarded constantly by coincidences that reminded me of her, I allowed myself a touch of comfort alongside the fresh spurt of pain: surely all of this meant that we were meant to be together, and she would want me back as soon as I had suffered enough, learned my lesson. She just didn't know it yet. The lyrics of this song come to mind: "It is written in the stars above / The gods decree / You'll be right here by my side . . . Don't say you're happy / Out there without me / I know you can't be / 'Cause it's no good."
Someday Out of the Blue - Even after I accepted that the conflict between us really wasn't just going to blow over this time, I hoped that with time and effort, we would find our way back to each other. There were a few days I spent humming this song under my breath, over and over. "I still believe / I still put faith in us / We had it all and watched it slip away . . . Maybe years from now / Or tomorrow night / I'll turn and I'll see you / As if we always knew / Someday we would live again."
Anger:
Harden My Heart - This is a nice, vigorous song to sing out loud when you're feeling angry - or pretending you're not the sorry little sad sack who just got dumped. (It's actually a good thing if you're mad enough to howl when you sing this one - it makes it easier to hit those drawn-out high notes.) "You gave me your word - but words for you are lies . . . I'm gonna harden my heart / I'm gonna swallow my tears / I'm gonna turn - and - leave you here."
Smile - This is the song I think is the likeliest contender to replace Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know" as the unofficial anthem of angry female dumpees everywhere. The two songs are quite similar - vigorous and catchy beats, a dollop of profanity that packs an effective punch without coming across as gratuitously crass. While Alanis's lyrics pack far more angst than Lily's, there's a winsome sweetness to "Smile" that belies its fundamental nastiness: "At first when I see you cry / It makes me smile / Yeah, it makes me smile / At worst, I feel bad for a while / But then I just smile / I go ahead and smile." (Even if you're not much of a fan of music videos, this one is worth checking out. And if you enjoy it, the Sims 2 version is equally delightful.)
I Survived You - This one is simultaneously resentful and triumphant. "I see the picture clear now, the fog has lifted . . . couldn't help mistaking / That you could ever care for anyone / Anyone but yourself . . . But you would have to have a conscience, baby . . . And when you wrote me off like I was doomed / I survived you . . . I'll be damned if I have thoughts of you / Rain on my new beginning."
Bargaining:
Everything I Own - The evening my partner threw me out, my mother came to pick me up. I waited for her down by the curb, shivering in the cold air of the late winter night - hoping to distract myself from my agony through physical discomfort, and perhaps on some level atone by my suffering for the hurt I had caused. And while I was standing there, this was the song that was running through my head. "I would give anything I own / Give up my life, my heart, my home / I would give ev'rything I own / Just to have you back again."
Pour Que Tu M'Aimes Encore - This is bargaining at its most desperate, plaintive, and poetic: "I will seek out your heart if you carry it away . . . I will seek out your soul through fire and ice . . . I will make myself new to rekindle the flames / I will become those others who please you so much / We'll play their games, if that's what you want / Shinier and more beautiful, to ignite a new spark / I will turn myself to gold so you'll love me again."
If Ever You're in My Arms Again - It was only that she didn't want to hear me say these things that kept me by and large from saying them, a fact for which I am now grateful. "We had a once-in-a-lifetime / But I just couldn't see until it was gone . . . I swear from now on / If ever you're in my arms again / This time I'll love you much better."
Depression:
Just When I Needed You Most - This song so perfectly captures the feeling of desolation and loss that follows a breakup that it's hard not to quote the whole thing. "Now most every morning I / Stare out the window and I / Think about where you might be / I've written you letters / That I'd like to send / If you would just send one to me / 'Cause I need you more than I / Needed before and now / Where I'll find comfort, God knows / 'Cause you left me / Just when I needed you most."
The End of the World - This is the sort of song I used to regard with a sniff of superiority. I thought a person would have to be a bloody sentimental fool to equate the end of a relationship to the end of the world. Well, it would seem that I am a bloody sentimental fool. "I wake up in the morning and I wonder / Why everything's the same as it was / I can't understand, no I can't understand / How life goes on the way it does / Why does my heart go on beating? / Why do these eyes of mine cry? / Don't they know it's the end of the world? / It ended when you said goodbye."
Look What You've Done - There was a short time, as our love was crumbling around me and in the first weeks after the breakup, that I had vivid fantasies about her killing me - stabbing me in the heart. It wasn't really that I wanted to die, and I certainly wouldn't have wished her to have to suffer the legal ramifications and emotional aftermath of such an act. Perhaps the best way I can explain it is that, in a very real way, I had given my whole self away to her when I promised her the rest of my life, and I would rather see her consume that gift into oblivion than return it to me battered and rejected. Or perhaps this song explains it better: "You have taken the heart of me / And left just a part of me / And look, look, look what you've done / Well, you took all the best of me / So come get the rest of me / And look back, finish what you've begun."
Acceptance:
Missing You - When acceptance finally comes, at first it takes the form of a sort of sad resignation - at least, that was how it came at first to me. "I guess that I had dreamed / We would never be apart / But that dream did not come true / And missing you is just a part of living / Missing you feels like a way of life / I'm living out the life that I've been given / But baby I still wish you were mine."
Please Remember Me - One of the things that most helped me to carry on without her was the thought that she would be better off, happier, without me. I felt, as long as she was somewhere in the world, happy and thriving, then I really had no right to complain about anything at all. This song reduced me to tears over and over again, and at the same time, the gentle music and powerful lyrics lifted my spirits. "You'll find better love / Strong as it ever was / Deep as the river runs / Warm as the morning sun / Please remember me." And when one day, I listened to the song and couldn't decide whether it felt like the last message of my soul to hers or her soul to mine, I knew that hope had been reborn.
Someone That I Used to Love - The hardest part of moving on, I think, was losing my ex-partner as a frame of reference. For over a year - even before we became a couple, when she was just my closest friend - she was the one who was always with me in my thoughts, even when I was alone. When I had a decision to make, I asked myself what she would think. When I went shopping, I was constantly on the lookout for little gifts I could bring home to her. Suddenly, all that was over. Even now, sometimes, "if I'm ever the least unsure I always remind myself / Though you're someone in this world that I'll always choose to love / From now on you're only someone that I used to love."
The Dance - This is acceptance, final and complete. A trace of sadness, but no regret. This may be the finest expression of the last stage of grief since Tennyson's In Memoriam was published in 1850. This song has consoled me through times of loss for over ten years, and I find it almost comforting to think that it will be there through many more to come, reminding me what really matters in the end: "I'm glad I didn't know / The way it all would end, the way it all would go / Our lives are better left to chance / I could have missed the pain / But I'd have had to miss the dance."
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