February

Jan. 29th, 2012 12:43 pm
ellenkushner: (Bessie McNicol)
[personal profile] ellenkushner
Yeah, it's coming . . . and with it, the dread V-Day.  For all your heartbreak needs, I recommend Dar Williams' "February." 


Here's a nice homemade video that uses the original track from her album Mortal City. YouTube also has many live performance versions.

This song drops me every time (as in: have to go find Delia & weep copiously into her shirt...). I put it into my Sound & Spirit show on Breakups (which was originally written - for February 2000 broadcast - by none other than Justine Larbalestier!) - you can listen to that whole program here.*

I just heard it on my favorite old Boston station, WUMB - which I can now hear on my internet radio, yay! - followed by another favorite, that is not about breakups at all:
 Anyway,
from Maggie & Suzzy Roche's great, great album ZERO CHURCH (which I also used trax from in Sound & Spirit, but, um, I forget which show). Here's more on the album & this song in particular. My link is to a YouTube video which "illustrates" the lyrics with very concrete images that to me limit your interpretation . . .  so maybe just listen the first time without watching.  Look out the window, or something, and see what the song can mean to you.

So what's your favorite breakup song?

*This is the program in which I told the - TRUE - story:

When I was young and foolish, a friend of mine dumped her boyfriend.  The next day, she looked awful: "I lay on the sofa and cried for hours last night."  Dumb me, I said, "Well, but...can I ask you something?  If you didn't want him anymore, then why did you cry?"

Kindly, she answered:  "I was crying because I had to say goodbye to the hopes I had . . . ."

And that's when you need a really good Breakup song to let the tears flow, for the release, the sympathy, even the sense that you're not the only one who's ever felt this pain . . . Though the same show contains this (also True):

A guy I once knew said:  "Why is it whenever something awful happens to women, you always go talk-talk-talking about it?  Why can't you be like a man--and just go off somewhere and quietly throw up?!"

Date: 2012-01-29 05:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] orizarising.livejournal.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWOuyE-b1tA
Edited Date: 2012-01-29 05:52 pm (UTC)

Date: 2012-01-31 01:54 am (UTC)

Date: 2012-01-29 05:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] heavenscalyx.livejournal.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY&ob=av3e

This played as I crossed the city line, moving out of town after my one huge, earthshaking breakup.

Date: 2012-01-29 05:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cssullivan.livejournal.com
Josh Ritter! Our great singing poet! Many of his songs are contenders, but "You Don't Make It Easy" is my choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63LUzyrPV4Q. He's a great singer and instrumentalist and his lyrics are a miracle, I think he's a writer of the first order. People tend either to call him the modern Dylan or the modern Mark Twain.

Date: 2012-01-31 01:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ellen-kushner.livejournal.com
Oh, my, yes!

Date: 2012-01-29 06:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thunderpigeon.livejournal.com
My first breakup song is still my favorite--REM's "It's the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine." I don't know if it was intended as a breakup song--or, if it was, how many people realize it. But a long time ago, it put things in perspective to get me through a breakup I'd known was coming, hadn't wanted to believe was coming, and didn't know how I'd handle it--and then, when it came, wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared. (In this sense, it sort of seems like it may be a sequel to "Don't Fall on Me.")

"February," on the other hand, got me through something much worse than a breakup, back in 2006. From February 19th, when my son was born, through the end of the month, when he was still in the NICU, the sig line on all my e-mails was, "The nights were long and cold and scary/can we get through February." When he was still in the NICU the next month, I changed it to "And February was so long/That it lasted into March."

He's fine now. Full of life. But that song helped me get through. a really rough beginning. Makes me tear up now, just thinking about it.

Date: 2012-01-29 06:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ellen-kushner.livejournal.com
Gotta love those "..And I Feel Fine!" breakup songs. My fave is The Waitresses' "No Guilt":
http://www.lyricsbay.com/no_guilt_lyrics-waitresses.html
ooo! here's a video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_UYo_C4ASI
(Do you Young People even know what "I got the cab calls out of the hi-fi" means? Sure, you don't!)

Your story about your son is making *me* cry . . . and I don't even know him. So very glad to know he's doing well.

Date: 2012-01-30 04:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thunderpigeon.livejournal.com
That was a really cool video, thanks! I couldn't make out every word, but I liked watching and listening to it.

I don't know what a cab call is (I'm assuming it's not just somebody hailing a taxi), but I do know that Hi-Fi is short for high fidelity, which, as I understand it, is what stereos used to be called when they were still a novelty/luxury item that people had to engineer on their own to get the sound right.

And thanks for the sympathy for my son you've never met. Having just gotten back from my critique group, I'm now pondering how to get a story out if it...except that, come to think of it, I did have an idea a while back that is still growing. I need to go through and harvest some of those old story ideas soon...

Date: 2012-01-30 04:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thunderpigeon.livejournal.com
p.s.: Thank you for calling me a Young Person. Although really, I'm not a Young, I just married in.

Date: 2012-01-29 08:21 pm (UTC)
ext_3319: Goth girl outfit (Default)
From: [identity profile] rikibeth.livejournal.com
The one I played on constant repeat when I was eighteen was Suzanne Vega's "Undertow."

Many years later, the English Beat's "Save It For Later" seemed to encapsulate my situation.

ETA: A bit after that, it was Alkaline Trio's wonderfully bitter "Fine Without You."

Haven't had much need of one since, and the other early breakups didn't seem to attach songs to themselves.
Edited Date: 2012-01-29 08:22 pm (UTC)

Date: 2012-01-29 08:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com
Oh, now come on. How can everyone be overlooking the collected works of Richard Thompson?

It would be too hard to pick only one. But I suppose if I absolutely had to, it would be "Missy How You Let Me Down," for the sheer gorgeousness of the imagery.

Date: 2012-01-29 10:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] janni.livejournal.com
When I was writing Faerie Winter, I totally thought of "February" as encompassing the emotional feel of that book, which was all about winter. (I don't think of it as a breakup song, though, because they wind up together, if sadder, at the end, don't they?)

I'm pretty fond of Mary Chapin Carpenter's "This is Love", which is oddly comforting for a breakup song.

Date: 2012-01-29 10:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elswhere1.livejournal.com
@janni, I think they do break up; in the last verse she sings "My new lover gave me keys to the house." But that line always makes me extra sad, every time, because there is that moment of hope when she goes out walking and sees a crocus and you think maybe they can salvage things...oh, I'm getting all choked up again just thinking about it.

Date: 2012-01-29 10:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] janni.livejournal.com
I've never been clear on whether the new love is new-new or the old one sort of made new by all they've been through. Heartbreaking either way, though.

Date: 2012-01-29 11:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elswhere1.livejournal.com
That's lovely, and a much more hopeful interpretation than I've ever given that song. I always figured she was chopping wood with her new lover because she'd learned from the breakup and never wanted to go through that again. But it could work either way, couldn't it.

Date: 2012-01-29 10:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elswhere1.livejournal.com
Putting in a plug for my new home and native land, 'cause nobody does breakup songs like the Canadians. My very favorite for sheer over-the-top misery has to be Kate & Anna McGarrigle's "Heart Like a Wheel," though their "Go, Leave" and "I Cried for Us" have a certain something, too. And then there's "Hallelujah," most rueful & bitter breakup song of all time! And really almost everything else by Leonard Cohen.

And I always think of the Be Good Tanyas' "Human Thing" as a breakup song, though it's ambiguous: the way they sing "A girl can keep it together" has a just-broken-up feel about it. And their cover of Neil Young's "For the Turnstiles" (though I guess that's kind of ambiguous too. But it would work well for a breakup.) And "A Thousand Tiny Pieces". And really everything on the first half of the album where I heard these, "Hello Love."

Date: 2012-01-30 01:25 am (UTC)
deakat: (Default)
From: [personal profile] deakat
Here's another selection from Canuckistan. This song reached in and crushed my heart as my last two relationships drew to a close.

Date: 2012-01-31 11:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bluestalking.livejournal.com
I LOVE LYNN MILES SO MUCH. Sometimes you just need a musician whose songs say, "Well, shit."

Date: 2012-01-29 11:16 pm (UTC)
ext_27060: Sumer is icomen in; llude sing cucu! (imagine the world)
From: [identity profile] rymenhild.livejournal.com
The most searing breakup song I know is Vienna Teng, Antebellum (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYb-cNOxe8w), which gets at the terrible longing (http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858761517/) for the lost love who may be standing right next to you but who will never be your love again:

In the fall,
We circle through the leaves
And talk about the little ones.
And we smile, but never say too much.
The moment always vanishing.
One by one the neighbors' lights come on.
Our October day is almost gone.

I know the border lines we drew between us
Keep the weapons down,
Keep the wounded safe,
I know our antebellum innocence
Was never meant to see the light of our armistice day.

Date: 2012-01-31 02:10 am (UTC)
ext_27060: Sumer is icomen in; llude sing cucu! (Default)
From: [identity profile] rymenhild.livejournal.com
Vienna Teng is consistently amazing. I recommend poking through her YouTube videos and listening for hours and/or days on end.

Date: 2012-01-31 11:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bluestalking.livejournal.com
YES, DO IT. All her songs are about being not quite right, and her lyrics are just wonderful. Also: she is VERY good live.

Date: 2012-01-30 01:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] maya-a.livejournal.com
"In the Winter" by Janis Ian sums up the feeling of 'no, I'm fine, really' when of course you' re not.

Songs that I thought were true when I was very young, such as "Love has No Pride" turned out in the event to be dead wrong for me.

"Fire and Rain" isn't really about a breakup, is for me. There was a year when that song followed me around...

And "February" always makes me think of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. I read an article online and saw a related video that used the song to explain some of the symptoms and progression of Alzheimers. It was very compelling.



Date: 2012-01-31 01:57 am (UTC)

Date: 2012-01-30 05:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ophanim.livejournal.com
Scala covering Eskobar's Someone New (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58ZPGqt4_Vw)

So this is goodbye.
Is it time to set you free?
Is it time to let it fly?
Is it time to let it bleed?

We used to take turns
to cover up the pains
but deep below, it burns
and the feeling still remains.

You're gonna find someone new
I really hope you do
'Cause I love you...

Date: 2012-01-30 05:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eppiemorrie.livejournal.com
I also love Mary Chapin Carpenter's "It Don't Bring You," especially the line "for a while I thought we'd almost beat the rain."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1xQ7i-ZAYc

Date: 2012-01-31 01:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ellen-kushner.livejournal.com
Oh! Oh! I LOVE that song! Must've had that album on Endless Loop the year I got it . . . Never thought of it as a Breakup Song - thought it was more of a Wisdom Song - it's fascinating to me throughout these comments how people hear things so differently - I will play it again, listening for "I thought we'd almost beat the rain" with new ears.....

Thnaks, sweetie

Date: 2012-01-30 11:11 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I needed that for this very weekend, some of which reason you can probably guess.

xxxJane

Re: Thnaks, sweetie

Date: 2012-01-30 03:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ellen-kushner.livejournal.com
Aw, honey, so sorry! Hope the music helps, just a little.

Date: 2012-01-30 04:30 pm (UTC)
jazzfish: a black-haired man with a big sword. blood stains the snow behind (Eddard Stark)
From: [personal profile] jazzfish
I've maintained for years that "February" is not only the saddest song I know, it's the saddest song possible.

Inches and Miles by Dave Mallet and Trees Still Bend by Girlyman got me through a rough patch a year and a half ago. (so long, already? time's doing that 'flying' thing again.)

Date: 2012-01-31 02:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ellen-kushner.livejournal.com
I'd never heard "Trees Still Bend" before - it is PERFECT. A great recommendation for everyone passing through "February."

Date: 2012-01-31 08:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ladymondegreen.livejournal.com
There are hundreds of these for me, not that I've had hundreds of breakups, but I love sad songs, and there are so many that hit me during my last really bad breakup about thirteen years ago. Both Hands by Ani DiFranco is up there, as well as Yours and Mine by The Fountains of Wayne, North Dakota by Kris Delmhorst, That'll Be Christmas by Thea Gilmore, Broke Down by Slaid Cleaves, Always by October Project and both I Know What Kind of Love This Is and their Christmas Carol though I know and love the Cry, Cry, Cry version of the former too.

Date: 2012-02-15 12:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ophelia-no-yume.livejournal.com
Adding belatedly to this thread from your most recent post linking back with a couple of my own to add to the mopey song list. I also want to say I love the Vienna Teng song which I have never heard before.

VNV Nation - Holding On (http://youtu.be/ieSq8moVOG0http://youtu.be/nCUHClheiZk)
Tori Amos - 1000 Oceans (http://youtu.be/UXsT8uTyt34)
Bat For Lashes - Sad Eyes (http://youtu.be/ieSq8moVOG0)
VNV Nation - Holding On (http://youtu.be/ieSq8moVOG0http://youtu.be/nCUHClheiZk)

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