If U Give Me a Chance I Know Whats at Stake You Know I

What makes a song a "breakup song"? Does it have to exist empowering, à la "I Will Survive" or most of the songs on Lemonade? Should it exist for the lonely, like Carole Rex's "Information technology'southward Too Late" or Bob Dylan's "If You See Her, Say Howdy"? Does it have to address the breakup in the lyrics? (Taylor Swift has many entrants in this category, and Marvin Gaye penned an unabridged album most his divorce.) What about songs with a famous backstory, like "Cry Me a River" or whatsoever rails off of Rumours?

Nosotros hither at The Ringer believe that since heartache comes in many forms, and then should the breakup vocal. And in laurels of Valentine's Day, we decided to dig deep into the genre. Below, yous'll notice our ranking of the 50 greatest breakup songs of all fourth dimension, as voted on by our staff. The listing spans several decades and many dissimilar moods, but all are rooted in some type of pain. There was only one rule for the final ranking: just one song per creative person was included to avoid Dolly Parton or even Drake from dominating.

So if y'all're lone, fire up our playlist and cry along every bit yous read our thoughts on each aspirant. If yous're happily attached, you can still swoop in—these are some of the greatest songs ever recorded, and that's true whether you're in your feelings or not. Maybe you lot'll gain a greater appreciation for your electric current relationship. After all, breakup songs resonate merely when yous know what it's like to lose in love. —Justin Sayles

50. "Nosotros Are Never E'er Getting Dorsum Together," Taylor Swift

About heartbreaking line: "You lot would hide abroad and find your peace of mind / With some indie tape that'due south so much libation than mine"

Ane of the almost savage breakdown songs in history, "We Are Never Ever Getting Dorsum Together" encapsulates the astringent "fuck that guy!" free energy that follows a long-overdue parting of ways. We've all had that post-fight bluster with our friends: "Ugh … so he calls me up and he's similar, 'I still love you,' and I'yard similar … 'I just … I mean this is exhausting, you know, like, we are never getting dorsum together. Similar, ever.'" Flippant, triumphant, and entirely exhausted by All Men, Taylor Swift gave u.s. the perfect soundtrack for breakdown recovery. — Kate Halliwell

49. "I Miss You," Blink-182

Most heartbreaking line: "I need somebody and e'er / This ill strange darkness / Comes creeping on and then haunting every time"

"I Miss You" is like a minimalist/emo have on Meat Loaf. It rules. The two best things well-nigh this number are Travis Barker's unproblematic just persistent drumbeat and Tom DeLonge's archway on the second poetry. It's part of the g popular punk tradition of showing yous mean business by going up an octave, of which "I Miss Yous" (along with the Starting Line's "The Best of Me") is the exemplar.

Don't just take my give-and-take for it, though. Consider Grammy-winning producer Finneas'south take: "Tom comes into that song like he was on a balcony and he jumped off the balcony onto the vocal." —Michael Baumann

48. "It's Too Late," Carole King

Nigh heartbreaking line: "But we just tin can't stay together, don't you lot feel it, too? / Still I'thousand glad for what nosotros had and how I one time loved you"

"It's Likewise Tardily" is a crushing ode to the most mutual kind of breakup. The natural procedure of ii people growing apart is equally heartbreaking as it is commonplace, and King sings in a tone perfectly situated between her sorrow and the shrugging admission that "we really did try to arrive." Her conversational delivery early in the song brings us into the living room, diner, or sidewalk where "the talk" between her and her about-to-be-ex is happening: "One of u.s. is changing, or maybe we but stopped trying," she sings, manifestly laying out the primal, blameless reasons for why most people end up separating. The vocal is defined by its maturity and its conciliatory attitude, but equally with actual breakup conversations, that doesn't brand it any easier to hear. —Cory McConnell

47. "Un-Suspension My Heart," Toni Braxton

Almost heartbreaking line: "I can't forget the day yous left / Fourth dimension is so unkind"

This is a perfect instance of the kind of breakup song y'all hear on the radio (or, in the late '90s, perhaps the club—the Frankie Knuckles house remix still goes) and, on a normal twenty-four hours, just hear another popular song, but when y'all're experiencing heartache, what originally sounded like songwriting clichés become the truest words you've ever heard. "I accept cried a lot of nights," you lot remember, getting out of bed for the first time in days to grab a ringlet of toilet paper since yous ran out of Kleenex. "Life is vicious without you here beside me," you lot murmur, staring into the bleak chasm of loneliness you lot now know as life. "I would literally do annihilation on God's greenish globe to hear you say y'all honey me again," you realize with the greatest clarity you've ever experienced. Anyway, where are my altos at? This is our karaoke song. — Kjerstin Johnson

46. "Mr. Brightside," the Killers

Most heartbreaking line: "At present they're going to bed and my stomach is sick / And it's all in my head"

Maybe it's not exactly right to call "Mr. Brightside" a breakup song; maybe it'southward more accurate to telephone call it a right-before-the-breakdown song, an I-imagined-my-girlfriend-was-adulterous-on-me-so-intensely-that-she-actually-started-cheating-on-me song. But that's all really clunky, then permit'south accept being slightly wrong for the sake of cleanliness. Either fashion, "Mr. Brightside" is an iconic mid-aughts song that'southward perfect for yell-karaoking and that pulls off the difficult trick of just repeating ane verse over and over. Also, Eric Roberts in the video. —Andrew Gruttadaro

45. "She's Gone," Hall & Oates

Most heartbreaking line: "Get up in the morn, wait in the mirror / One less toothbrush hanging in the stand up"

The dynamic duo of Daryl Hall and John Oates became feather-haired, MTV-borne superstars in the '80s, just their rise to greatness begins here, with the breakout hit from their 2d album, 1973'due south oddly/heartbreakingly named Abandoned Luncheonette. "She's Gone" is luscious and silky and deceptively low-cal, all Motown grandeur past way of blueish-eyed Philly soul, but that lightness only underscores the exquisite heaviness of murmured verse lines like "Go up in the morning, look in the mirror / Worn as the toothbrush hanging in the stand." (Or probably information technology'southward "One less toothbrush," which of class is fifty-fifty heavier.) The chorus, by contrast, is gigantic and majestic and crushing, punctuated by cloudbursting lamentations of "She's gone! / Oh why? / Oh why?" The boys only got bigger from here, only they certainly never got sadder. —Rob Harvilla

44. "Tyrone," Erykah Badu

Near heartbreaking line: "I just want it to exist, you and me, similar it used to be, baby / Merely ya don't know how to human activity"

The 2nd-best moment on this viciously sultry tedious jam, the crown jewel of Erykah Badu'due south 1997 album Live, is the stupendous opening line: "I'chiliad gettin' tired of your shit / You don't always buy me nothin'." The first-best moment is all the women in the oversupply immediately shrieking with delight and, ane fears, recognition. "Tyrone" is named for one of an unnamed deadbeat lover's numerous deadbeat friends: "Every time we go somewhere," Badu purrs with lethal say-so, "I gotta reach down in my purse / To pay your fashion and your homeboy's fashion and sometimes your cousin's way." It is the gender-flipped riposte to Fri's "Bye, Felicia," and in fact turned up every bit a joke in 2000's Next Friday; it "followed me thru my career similar an obsessed 10 boyfriend," every bit Badu put it on Instagram in 2017, while shouting out her backup singers, whose sardonic and sublime "Phone call him!" dirge is the 3rd-all-time moment. —Harvilla

43. "Honey Is a Battlefield," Pat Benatar

Most heartbreaking line: "Do I stand in your way / Or am I the best thing you lot've had?"

The agonizingly propulsive signature hit from flamethrower-voiced '80s pop queen Pat Benatar laments not so much a breakup equally a near-breakup in progress, an acknowledgement that truthful honey means almost breaking up pretty much all the time: "Believe me / Believe me / I can't tell you why / But I'm trapped by your love / And I'm chained to your side." It's a karaoke archetype you lot accept no business organisation attempting, a cheeseball Reagan-era smash of eternal profundity, and a hitting annunciation that sometimes the but thing worse than splitting up is non splitting upwardly: "Exercise I stand in your manner / Or am I the best affair you lot've had?" she wails with genuine desperation, and the answer, of class, is both. —Harvilla

42. "Devil in a New Clothes," Kanye West

Most heartbreaking line: "Throwing shit around, the whole place screwed up / Mayhap I should call Mase so that he could pray for us"

Nosotros're non even talking about the whole song—we're talking about 20 or so seconds of Bink production afterward Kanye'south second poesy, but before Rick Ross's only verse, arguably one of the best in his career. In it, he describes West's near-fatal car crash in 2002 as an aborted climb "up the Lord'due south ladder," and honestly, that's exactly what the collection of ability strings sound like on this span. A climb up the Lord's ladder, a deviation from World, a one-way trip to anywhere but hither. —Micah Peters

41. "Suspicious Minds," Elvis Presley

Well-nigh heartbreaking line: "We can't go along together / With suspicious minds / And we tin't build our dreams / On suspicious minds"

You lot can see the ripples of "Suspicious Minds" throughout the course of breakdown song history, from "Train in Vain" to "Dancing on My Own," which, you lot know, it'due south Elvis. But across the juxtaposition of its relatively upbeat music and depressing-as-hell lyrics, I love the structure of this song, with a peppy guitar intro and verses that build into a chorus that goes from One thousand major to very, very E minor and just doesn't ever actually resolve. This might not be the only reason the song fades out but there'due south no existent suitable catastrophe point for the terminal notes of the chorus, then it e'er drops back into a verse or a span or another chorus. "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" resolves more than hands. But like a broken relationship. —Baumann

40. "The Tracks of My Tears," Smokey Robinson & the Miracles

Most heartbreaking lines: "Although she may be cute, she's just a substitute / Because you're the permanent one"

On this classic Motown tearjerker, Smokey embodies the thought of the sad clown better than whatsoever song ever has. He's the life of the party—using jokes like a clown uses makeup—but inside, he'due south wounded, pining for a past lover. He's dating someone new, only he'south non thinking of her. (Side note: I don't know who I'k sadder for here, Smokey or the rebound he's walking effectually town with.) He may have wiped away the tears, just they've left their mark. And the makeup only makes the tear tracks that much more apparent. —Justin Sayles

39. "Tears Dry out on Their Ain," Amy Winehouse

Most heartbreaking line: "So this is inevitable withdrawal / Even if I stop wanting you / And perspective pushes through / I'll be some next man'southward other woman soon"

On "Tears Dry on Their Ain," Amy Winehouse demanded that Amy Winehouse take her ain advice. "I cannot play myself again, I should but exist my own best friend," she warns. "Not fuck myself in the head with stupid men." These lines that pried the song open were one of Winehouse's hallmarks as a writer—"Tears" begins in the dumps, in the aftermath. But during every emotional uncoupling comes the betoken where you gaze into the mirror, stick your finger in your reflection'southward chest, and tell them to stop being such a dumb, whiny babe. —Peters

38. "Needed Me," Rihanna

Almost heartbreaking lines: "Fuck your white horse and a carriage / Bet you lot never could imagine / Never told you you could have it / Yous needed me"

This song is then petty and I dear it. Rihanna basically made a hit off the "Sike, you lot idea!" meme and DJ Mustard added an unforgettable beat behind it. This is i of those bangers that you and your girls blast post-breakup, pre-going-out. And so, after you all sing in unison: "Don't become information technology twisted / Y'all was just another nigga on the striking list / Tryna fix your inner issues with a bad bowwow," you all burst into laughter thinking nigh the man who is now barely a memory. Rihanna's confidence and savageness is actually on an untouchable level. (Recall, this song is on the same album where she sings "sexual practice with me is so astonishing" over and over.) Long may she reign. —Jordan Ligons

37. "So Sick," Ne-Yo

Most heartbreaking line: "Gotta change my answering machine, now that I'm alone / 'Crusade right now it says that nosotros can't come to the telephone"

The earworm of a generation! Ne-Yo said no to sappy ballads in more ways than one with "So Ill," giving us an R&B smash striking for everyone sick of regular, schmegular love songs. Set to the world'southward catchiest beat, Ne-Yo mourns a past human relationship and all the day-to-mean solar day changes that come with moving on. "Gotta change my answering machine, at present that I'1000 alone / 'Cause right now information technology says that nosotros tin't come to the phone … Gotta fix that agenda I have that's marked July 15 / Because since there's no more than you lot, there's no more than ceremony." Fifteen years later on, nosotros still tin't turn off the radio. —Halliwell

36. "We Belong Together," Mariah Carey

Virtually heartbreaking line: "When you left I lost a part of me / It's still so difficult to believe / Come back infant, delight / 'Cause nosotros belong together"

*Sighs.* This is easily the most played-out, sad breakup song of the early 2000s. Everyone thought about someone who could've/should've been their soul mate when this dropped in 2005. But now if it comes on the radio and you're either happily single or in a solid relationship, your eyes will glaze over, guaranteed. When the showtime ii seconds of the infamous trounce come through my speakers, I'm already irresolute the station. Information technology's just so annoying, and and then Mariah.

You may think that yous won't find someone else to lean on when times get rough or someone to talk to you on the phone until the lord's day comes up, but let me tell y'all, you volition and yous'll be fine. Breakups suck, but please don't torture your broken heart (or your ears) by listening to this vocal on repeat. —Ligons

35. "If You lot See Her, Say Hello," Bob Dylan

Nigh heartbreaking line: "Say for me that I'm all right, though things become kind of slow / She might think that I've forgotten her, don't tell her information technology isn't so"

The inspiration for Bob Dylan'due south masterful Blood on the Tracks has e'er been debated. Critics have long causeless that the album is near Dylan's separation from his wife, Sara. The couple'southward son, Jakob, reportedly believes that Blood is near his parents. Merely Dylan himself has steadily denied that his masterpiece is autobiographical, even proverb instead that it's based on … Chekhov'due south short stories. "I don't write confessional songs," Dylan told Cameron Crowe during the release of the immersive (and, in the context of this quote, ironically named) Biograph. The truth is, it doesn't matter. Blood strikes such a chord because the heartache it mines feels at in one case deeply personal and universal.

That's most palpable on "If You Come across Her, Say Hello," which brings united states of america into a fractured human relationship in a way that'south both effortlessly relatable ("We had a falling out, like lovers ofttimes will") and hyper-specific ("And to think of how she left that night, information technology nonetheless brings me a chill"). It'south not Dylan's flashiest or heaviest or best song, but information technology is my favorite, a gentle, intimate portrait of lost love and lasting ache. Like and then much of his best work, information technology's propelled by its poetry, the raw insights near how it feels to exist alive. The song cycles through the aforementioned phases that so many of us practise while processing heartbreak: denial, despair, anger, want. Information technology floats on a current of remorse ("Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past / I know every scene past centre, they all went past so fast") yet manages to convey the kind of longing that leads, charily, back toward hope ("If she's passing back this style, I'm not that hard to find / Tell her she tin can expect me up, if she's got the time"). Later enough listens, and enough heartache of your own, you realize that "If You Meet Her, Say Hello" isn't actually a breakup song. It's a love letter of the alphabet. — Mallory Rubin

34. "Don't Look Back in Anger," Haven

Most heartbreaking line: "Stand up beside the fireplace / Take that look from off your confront / 'Cause you ain't ever gonna burn my heart out"

The closest I've e'er come to living in an episode of Glee was when my high school French class spontaneously broke out singing "Don't Expect Back in Anger." I don't retrieve why, but it cemented this song (at least for me) as a ballad of communal weltschmerz, rather than personal sadness or regret, like a fin-de-siècle "You'll Never Walk Alone." (For case: "Don't Expect Dorsum in Anger" became a kind of unofficial anthem afterward the Manchester bombing in 2017.) Oasis knows a thing or two about writing for the communal sing-along, the importance of the languid, memorable tune and the propulsive chord modify—this song would conduct almost the same emotional weight if it were just a title and a chorus. —Baumann

33. "Every Jiff Y'all Have," the Police

Most heartbreaking line: "Since you've gone I've been lost without a trace / I dream at night, I tin can simply meet your face"

This spectacularly maudlin New Wave ballad, which anchored the Police'south 1983 goliath Synchronicity and reigned as one of the biggest radio hits of the decade, is creepy as all hell, very much by design: an unrepentant stalker manifesto that doesn't and then much describe spurned beloved in terms of surveillance as it describes total state surveillance in terms of spurned love: "Every motion you make / Every vow y'all suspension / Every smile you simulated / Every claim y'all stake." And and then on. "I'll be watching you," Sting concludes a couple dozen times throughout, merely it'southward the chest-pounding bridge where the trio'southward creepy-soulful frontman does some of his all-time belting, his best pleading, his all-time super-creepy emoting and enunciating: "I feel so cold and I long for your em-caryatid." Fun fact: He started writing the song at Ian Fleming's writing desk on the James Bond writer'south luxe Jamaican estate, which might not be creepy, but it's certainly weird. —Harvilla

32. "Don't Speak," No Uncertainty

Most heartbreaking line: "Every bit we die, both you and I / With my head in my hands, I sit and weep"

I hateful, honestly, it takes a lot of guts to driblet a Spanish classical guitar solo in the center of an angsty '90s alt-rock song. Information technology also takes a lot of guts to write a song about breaking up with the bass role player in your band and and then make a music video for the vocal that has shots in it similar the one below: Don't speak, literally.

No Uncertainty'southward first hit is a work of art, total of raw, youthful emotion and complex arrangements. It'southward beautiful, savage, painful, and incendiary, all at once. —Gruttadaro

31. "Thinkin Bout Yous," Frank Sea

Most heartbreaking lines: "Do you lot not think so far alee? / 'Cause I been thinkin' bout forever"

Sometimes you take to lie to yourself to get through heartache. They weren't adept plenty for me. I can do improve. I didn't beloved them, I simply thought they were beautiful. Frank Ocean's "Thinkin Bout You" exposes that kind of posturing for what it is: a facade. No, I wasn't crying most you, and by the fashion, I likewise own waterfront property in Idaho. Frank's clearly still hung upwardly on the past even if his old flame isn't. And the only way to work through the pain is to drib the lying and come make clean with himself. It's tender, it'south sugariness, just virtually of all, it'due south honest. —Sayles

30. "I'm Goin' Down," Mary J. Blige

Most heartbreaking lines: "Why'd yous have to say goodbye? / Look what you've done to me / I can't stop these tears from fallin' from my eyes"

No matter your current human relationship status, you will for sure sing your heart out when this song comes on. I do not care, I am Mary J. when the chorus hits. By the terminate of the song—a cover of Rose Royce'southward 1976 single—you've "gone down" so much that you're on the floor, eyes closed, hoop earrings in, and belting, "My whole globe's up-[dramatic pause]-side downwards!" I can't be the only ane, correct?

Also, recollect when Tamera sang this song for the talent show on Sister, Sis? Iconic. —Ligons

29. "Nothing Compares 2 U," Sinéad O'Connor

Most heartbreaking lines: "I could put my arms around every boy I encounter / But they'd just remind me of you"

Breakups are freeing; breakups are imprisoning. When yous come out of a yearslong human relationship, you accept to relearn how to live without that person in your life. Parts of that process are beautiful—reconnecting with old friends, picking upward a new hobby, shaking off the shackles. But the breakup sticks with y'all. You run across your ex's best friend at the bar, or y'all hear a vocal that you both loved. Sometimes, it's a pocket-sized annoyance. Other times, information technology'due south an world-shattering issue. You're relearning how to live, only living is difficult.

I can't retrieve of a vocal that better captures that duality than "Nothing Compares ii U," the 1990 O'Connor hit originally penned past Prince in 1985. You can practice any you want: You tin political party all night, y'all tin can eat at a fancy eatery, y'all can put your arms around all the boys and girls you'd like, just it doesn't affair. It's non them, and nothing will be. Your best hope is just giving in and living for yourself. —Sayles

28. "Marvin's Room," Drake

Most heartbreaking line: "The woman that I would try / Is happy with a good guy"

Drake is at his all-time when he's destructive because he masks the gaslighting with a softer sadness. "The woman that I would endeavor / Is happy with a good guy," he sings. Is he happy for her? The lines suggest that in that location's at least a risk. Drake pauses, then goes total Drizzy Deleterious: "Merely I've been drinkin' so much / That I'ma call her anyhow." He proceeds to tell her that the man she's with isn't good enough to replace what they had. It'southward the classic overstep from an ex, but the longer he goes on, nosotros realize information technology'southward more than about his pride and alien emotions about his life choices than information technology is near her. Drake spirals, telling her he'south "had sex four times this week / I tin can explain," that he's sponsoring women, that he can't stop partying and asking for naked pictures. Exactly what your ex-girlfriend wants to hear, I'thou sure. At least there's a voicemail interlude. —Haley O'Shaughnessy

27. "Just a Friend," Biz Markie

About heartbreaking line: "Oh, snap! Guess what I saw? / A fella tongue-kissin' my girl in her mouth"

Turns out this adult female did not have what Biz Markie needed. As he singsplains, he became kitten smitten with a woman at one of his shows. You'd think that this would have happened to him all the fourth dimension, merely it did not. This was "the first girl I ever talked to," Biz told EW last year. "Every time I would telephone call out to California, a dude would selection up and hand her the phone. I'd be like, 'Yo, what's upwards [with him]?' She'd say, 'Oh, he'southward just a friend. He's nobody.'" Not taking the hint, Biz flew out to California to surprise her a calendar week earlier than planned. When he showed upward, at that place was a guy "tongue-kissing my girl in her oral cavity."

Biz. My guy. Sit downwardly. Allow's talk. Showtime off, she was not your daughter. You met her one time. 2nd, you did not catch her tongue-kissing a dude. You stalked her. Third, it was extremely obvious that this friend was not just her friend. What Biz Markie needed was someone to heed to his story and requite him honest feedback most his predicament. You know, a friend. —Danny Heifetz

26. "Burn," Usher

Most heartbreaking line: "Merely you know, gotta permit it go / 'Cause the party ain't jumpin' like it used to / Even though this might bruise you / Let it burn"

I couldn't imagine someone breaking up with me with the lyrics to this vocal. Usher is all over the place. He says he loves me, but our relationship has to come to an end; he says he's hurting and he's not happy, but he'south breaking down and crying. Deep down he knows information technology'due south best, but he hates the thought of me beingness with someone else. Get your shit together, Usher!

Still, for all of its confusing dorsum-and-forth, this is a breakup archetype. It preaches the ideology of forcing yourself to permit go even when y'all don't know what you lot're going to practice without your boo. Afterwards a heartbreak, everyone has plant themselves teetering on the line between regret and liberty. Usher's "Burn" allows you to tap into that while simultaneously yelling out, "Information technology's been fifty-eleven days, umpteen hours, and Imma be burnin' till you render!" —Ligons

25. "Piece of My Eye," Large Blood brother & the Property Company

Most heartbreaking line: "Only each time I tell myself that I, well I tin't stand the hurting / Merely when y'all agree me in your arms, I'll sing it one time again"

If you lot're always at your wits' end, tragically obsessed with someone who treats you lot like shit, yous can observe some catharsis in the controlled anarchy of Janis Joplin'southward vocal performance on "Slice of My Heart." Become ahead and scream along. You lot won't audio as skillful as Janis, but you'll certainly feel a hell of a lot better later on.

In one case your acrimony fades a little, you tin can switch over to the original recording of this vocal, released a year before in 1967 and sung by Erma Franklin (aye, that's Aretha's older sister). Or if you demand some more twang accompanying your despair, you tin endeavor the Organized religion Hill version. I besides won't judge y'all if the only person who tin can ease your pain is Shaggy (or Beverley Knight, Melissa Etheridge, Steven Tyler, Kelly Clarkson, or one of countless other artists).

Written by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns, "Piece of My Center" is one of the most relatable and enduring songs nigh Some Fuckboi in the history of fuckbois. The phone call-and-response structure of the chorus builds those simmering resentments and releases them with a precipitous, primal cry. Undoubtedly, at that place will be new versions of this song until the end of time⁠—because it's an absolute banger—but also considering … men. —Matt James

24. "Skinny Dear," Bon Iver

Near heartbreaking line: "And I told you to exist patient / And I told yous to be fine"

A good rule for breakup songs is that there has to exist a part that yous can yell along to, unencumbered by featherbrained things like constraint and self-sensation. The chorus of Bon Iver'southward "Skinny Dear" has a swell one, especially for anyone who's just exited a human relationship and feels compelled to heap all the blame on the other party.

You know the story by now: In 2006, Justin Vernon broke up with his girlfriend, packed up his motorcar, and drove into the Wisconsin wilderness, emerging only afterward recording an anthology of weepy breakup songs. That origin tale has been repeated so often that it'southward become soft mush, obscuring the real truth: That For Emma, Forever Ago—and particularly "Skinny Dear"—are profoundly cogitating, intelligent, moving documents almost the breakup of a relationship. —Gruttadaro

23. "Concord Upwards," Beyoncé

Most heartbreaking line: "Can't you see there's no other homo in a higher place y'all? / What a wicked style to treat the girl that loves you"

Information technology's difficult to express real hurt over an uptempo vanquish and make the heartbreak convincing. Notwithstanding Beyoncé is conceivable in "Hold Up," a painful accounting of the emotions that come after discovering that your partner has cheated. Lemonade was inspired by true events—i.due east., it'due south Beyoncé coming to terms with Jay-Z being unfaithful. Infidelity brings on a very specific type of devastation: Y'all're mad; y'all're miserable; y'all're humiliated. You switch from one emotion to some other in a matter of minutes. She opens the song with confidence: No other woman can give what she can. "Concord up, they don't love you similar I love yous." In a jiff, she's less sure of herself: "What's worse, looking jealous or crazy?" Beyoncé settles on crazy, then returns to anger. "You let this practiced beloved go to waste product." —O'Shaughnessy

22. "Weep Me a River," Justin Timberlake

Nigh breaking lyric: "You didn't know all the means I loved y'all, no / Then y'all took a risk / And made other plans"

Entering 2002, Justin Timberlake wasn't regarded as much more a teeny bopper. His group 'NSync was ane of the defining groups of the male child band era, and he was its charismatic face. (The cute one, if you will.) He even had the perfect girlfriend for that blazon of stardom: Britney Spears, with whom he pulled off this iconic denim fit. So the couple broke up, JT split from 'NSync, and "Cry Me a River" happened.

In his first solo megahit, Justin insinuates his love has cheated on him ("You don't accept to say what yous did / I already know, I found out from him") and writes her off for expert. He's already cried about it, and now it'southward her plough. Merely no corporeality of her tears can undo the impairment; he's gone. You didn't have to do much sleuthing to figure out he was singing nigh Britney. That celebrity intrigue, Timbaland'south sharp product, and an instantly memorable music video combined to make "Cry Me a River" the nearly iconic breakup song of the early on 2000s, catapulting him to some other level of stardom. He had split with not only Britney, only besides his past, and he was ready for the world. —Sayles

21. "With or Without You," U2

Most heartbreaking line: "She got me with zero to win / And nothing left to lose"

Nix changes if nothing changes, as they say, and "With or Without You lot" exists in that hopelessly recursive "I detest that I dearest you" space. This song was U2's start no. ane hit in the U.S., fifty-fifty though, Bono has said, "it'southward a very odd-sounding vocal … it kind of whispers its way into the world." Just information technology'due south not the whispers that resonate most, however, it'due south all those wails, like the crescendo of Bono's aching, eminently singalong-able ahhh-ahhh-ahh-ahhhhhs, or the painful, everlasting notes from the Border's "infinite guitar," engineered to hold a tone as if it were a grudge. "Psychotic restraint" is how Bono characterized the Edge's spare work on this track, a description that could double as breakup communication. —Katie Bakery

xx. "Jolene," Dolly Parton

Most heartbreaking line: "And I can easily understand / How you lot could easily take my man / But you don't know what he ways to me, Jolene"

While other female person country singers might've handled their human being's newfound fascination with a beautiful redhead by, say, earthworks a key into the side of his pretty little souped-up four-bicycle drive, or—merely spitballing hither—threatening to transport her to Fist Urban center, Parton simply pleads for mercy. The desperate pitch of her appeal, set against a frantic Dorian-fashion guitar riff, sets the stakes far college than those you might find in more often than not stern country songs nigh cheatin', lyin', and being untrue. Any armchair scholar of Parton's work tin tell you she cloaks feminist manifestos within marketable diddies near everyday experiences. I've always taken the song's urgency to imply something that every adult female learns eventually: Relationships can exist both romantically fulfilling, and, also often, an economic lifeboat to a better life. In "Jolene," our narrator isn't just grasping onto her human being, she'due south grasping for survival. —Alyssa Bereznak

19. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," Marvin Gaye

Almost heartbreaking line: "Do you plan to permit me go / For the other guy you loved before?"

This vocal was beginning released by Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1967. A year subsequently Marvin Gaye released a slower version of it on his album In the Groove. Possibly the song resonated with Gaye because he married a 41-year-onetime woman when he was only 24, and their union was full of infidelities. "I was in beloved with the idea of love," Gaye once said. Or at least that's what I heard through the grapevine. —Heifetz

xviii. "Ex-Factor," Lauryn Hill

Near heartbreaking line: "Where were you when I needed y'all?"

"Ex-Factor" is more than a breakup song, it'southward about recognizing a toxic relationship before y'all have the words to call it a toxic relationship. Each line, so honest it hurts, is about the fruitless search for reason in a scenario devoid of it. Hill's lyrics capture the worst of the worst of a relationship on the rocks: the hurting, the complicity, and the unwillingness to requite up on a dearest you retrieve is nonetheless there, buried below the bullshit.

When it hit airwaves over again in 2018 on Drake'due south pandering nonetheless irresistible "Nice for What," it was well-nigh like recognizing and reclaiming a past self—one who might have cried forth to the original. At present, every bit wiser, more Empowered™ listeners, nosotros heard the remixed, catchy hook devoid of its devastating verses and bopped our heads as Drake reminded us of how brusk life is. Still, no one can capture the raw, uncomfortable emotion that Lauryn originally did—and no i always will. —Johnson

17. "Y'all're So Vain," Carly Simon

Most heartbreaking line: "Well, you said that we fabricated such a pretty pair / And that y'all would never leave / But you gave away the things yous loved / And one of them was me"

Far before Taylor Swift sent her fans on subtweet scavenger hunts, Carly Simon penned a epic kissoff that, thanks to its self-referential chorus, left the world wondering whom it was near and what they could've possibly done to acrimony her. More than 40 years of speculation later, we now know that the singer was describing the actor Warren Beatty. (She added in a recent, withering interview that, although the song describes three separate men, Beatty "thinks the whole thing is about him.") We may never know what company he kept (cough: Mick Jagger?), just the lasting power of Simon's clear-eyed takedown stands as a plebiscite on the unchecked male ego, whether its contained in the body of a dashing actor or a moody fuckboy. —Bereznak

xvi. "Dancing on My Own," Robyn

Most heartbreaking line: "Aye, I know it's stupid, I just gotta encounter information technology for myself"

Last year, post-obit a Robyn bear witness at Madison Square Garden, elated concertgoers continued the party on the A/C/East railroad train subway platform, breaking into a giddy public performance of "Dancing on My Ain." You wouldn't typically expect a breakup vocal to be the one that leads New Yorkers to such displays of collective joy, just most breakup songs aren't similar this i: a song you lot can strut to, a order anthem, a scene-stealer, a story of lonesomeness that notwithstanding finds its solace in a crowd. Information technology's a song well-nigh moving on—I just came to say goodbye—merely also about, just, moving. The singer might exist solitary in the corner, and she might know it's stupid, merely she'southward out there dancing, at least. —Bakery

15. "Give thanks U, Next," Ariana Grande

Almost heartbreaking line: "Wish I could say, 'Thanks' to Malcolm / 'Cause he was an angel"

This song is a determination to exist done with suffering over a relationship, to recommit to oneself, to focus on healing and establishing new patterns. To not only rehearse by losses but to envision future victories, and also to live in the moment, to be here now.

This to do the actual, twenty-four hours-in, 24-hour interval-out piece of work of existence happy. —Peters

14. "End of the Road," Boyz II Men

Virtually heartbreaking line: "It's unnatural"

Both the joyous genesis and abject death knell for billions of '90s junior-loftier-gymnasium-dance relationships that just lasted the length of the song itself, "Terminate of the Route," which rose to power on 1992's Boomerang soundtrack, is 1 of the biggest hits in pop-music history. Like, "xiii straight weeks atop the Hot 100" big. Like, "The 'Onetime Boondocks Road' of Its Twenty-four hours" big, a tearjerking shout-along anthem for lovelorn belters likewise devastated to even take their horses and go out the house. The final a capella chorus is a signature moment in American cultural history, at one time exhilarating and devastating: "It's unnatural / You belong to me / I belong to you lot." The word unnatural has never sounded and so natural, and so miserable. —Harvilla

13. "Dreams," Fleetwood Mac

Most heartbreaking line: "At present here yous go again, you say you lot want your freedom / Well, who am I to keep you down?"

Even 40-plus years on, to hear Stevie Nicks softly moaning, "What you lot had ... and what y'all lost / And what you had ... and what you lot lost" to the guy playing guitar is to alive forever, and to imagine that guitar thespian dropping dead from remorse on the spot. (Lindsey Buckingham, of course, has been known to chugalug out a sweetly caustic breakup anthem or two himself.) Equally the second (and best!) rails on 1977'southward zillions-selling Rumours, "Dreams" is both radically overexposed and nevertheless somehow criminally underrated, fixed to its iconic place, time, and circumstances but too shockingly timeless. (Zoë Kravitz rhapsodizes information technology in the pilot of Hulu's new High Fidelity remake series to testify her rock-nerd bona fides.) Pair it with "Silver Springs" for maximum consequence. —Harvilla

12. "How Tin can You Mend a Broken Heart," Al Dark-green

Most heartbreaking line: "Let me alive over again"

There's heartbreak, and so there's Al Green heartbreak. (Non to slight the original Bee Gees version—Green is all I know when I'm going through it.) He's exasperated from the get-go, wondering whether he'll always recover from the honey that went away. The desperation is enough to contemplate nature itself in the chorus: "How can you mend a broken heart? / How can you stop the rain from falling down? / How can you lot stop the sun from shining? / What makes the world go round?" Dark-green is begging for answers, for "somebody, delight" to come fix him. He pleads, "Let me alive over again." Life as he knew information technology is over without this person, and as long as the song is on, it feels over for us, too. —O'Shaughnessy

11. "Torn," Natalie Imbruglia

About heartbreaking line: "I'grand all out of faith / This is how I experience, I'm cold and I am shamed / Lying naked on the flooring"

In that location's a bad breakup, there'due south rock bottom, and then there's being "cold and shamed, lying naked on the floor." Natalie Imbruglia'due south 1997 one-hit wonder (and sneaky encompass) doesn't mince words in describing exactly how shitty it feels to put your religion in the wrong human being. (Or whatsoever human being, depending on how hard you vibe with this song.) "Torn" has taken a turn for the over-covered and over-memed these days, only y'all're lying if you say you don't still hit that chorus every fourth dimension. —Halliwell

10. "I Will Survive," Gloria Gaynor

Most heartbreaking line: "And then yous felt like dropping in and just await me to be free / Well now I'm saving all my lovin' for someone who'south lovin' me"

This 1978 disco colossus is so singular, so monolithic, so nuptials-dancefloor-ingrained that it hardly scans as a breakup song at all: As ecstatic and empowering fuck-you anthems go, it is the glamorous grandmother to Lizzo'southward "Truth Hurts" and Ariana Grande's "Thank U, Side by side" and Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" and roughly l,000 other self-affirming pop hits. What truly elevates New Jersey diva Gloria Gaynor's all-timer, though, is its sociopolitical import: "I Volition Survive" has long been a stirring boxing hymn for the LGBTQ community, for survivors of domestic violence, for anyone who tin can relate in whatsoever way, frivolously or otherwise, to the bluntly iconic line "I'm saving all my lovin' for someone who'southward lovin' me," which of course is everybody. She knows you're afraid; she knows yous're petrified. Only she also knows yous won't stay that fashion for long. —Harvilla

9. "Own't No Sunshine," Bill Withers

Most heartbreaking line: "Wonder this fourth dimension where she'south gone / Wonder if she's gone to stay"

To brand a song from 1971 about a video game from 2010: Dante's Inferno is an RPG based loosely on the commencement canticle of the Divine Comedy. I say loosely because EA Dante has rippling muscles and a massive scythe, his only protections against the legions of the night, who've stolen his beloved Beatrice. I never played it, but a friend who did described his frustration with the game: It'southward as if its determination got further away the more time he devoted to it. A Super Basin commercial showed Dante sprinting toward Hell's gaping mouth adamant just, you know, definitely doomed. Equally he descends you hear the depression croak of Beak Withers's voice, pining later a lost lover: "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone, just darkness everyday." My terminal breakdown didn't involve a giant flaming devil monster, merely it did feel like a similarly hopeless uphill battle. —Peters

viii. "Someone Like You," Adele

Most heartbreaking line: "Sometimes it lasts in love, merely sometimes it hurts instead"

The queen of heartbreak has never been better than on sophomore album 21, and 21 doesn't become much meliorate than "Someone Like You." Adele's ode to the one who got away is perhaps the most universally adored tearjerker of the past decade; starting with that simple piano line and catastrophe in that burdensome claw: "Sometimes it lasts in love, merely sometimes it hurts instead." And of course, that vox! Watching the unproblematic blackness and white music video at present, it'due south hit how babe-faced Adele was at 21, despite her commitment of a song that displays so much emotional maturity. She wishes the best for her ex ("Former friend, why are you and so shy?"), simply damn, she'south still hurting. Aren't we all! —Halliwell

7. "I Want You Back," The Jackson 5

Most heartbreaking lyrics: "Someone picked you lot from the bunch, ane glance was all it took / Now information technology's much too late for me to accept a second expect"

Perhaps the near outwardly joyous vocal in this entire ranking, "I Want You Dorsum" spins a tale that anyone who'southward always taken someone for granted will empathise. An xi-year-one-time Michael Jackson is at his well-nigh precocious here, singing about the girl whom he didn't fully appreciate until someone else stole her center. Now he but wants another gamble to testify that he knows how to treat her right. Michael, of course, didn't write the song—it was penned by Berry Gordy and Co.—but he sells it in a way that someone 2 or three times his age never could. A leopard can't modify its spots, just if it sounds this good trying to convince you lot it can, why not give it one more than chance? —Sayles

6. "Since U Been Gone," Kelly Clarkson

Well-nigh heartbreaking line: "How come up I'd never hear yous say / 'I just wanna be with you' (be with you) / I guess you never felt that way"

There is a moment in every breakdown where, after a few weeks of self-pity, y'all shed your sweatpant cocoon, pace outside, and, with the instantaneity of a rubber band snap, suddenly know deep within your middle that your ex was an insufferable blowhard. Kelly Clarkson's mosh-side by side power popular ballad embodies the newfound self-assurance that comes with that realization. It as well happens to be enshrined in a popular civilisation moment that I will forever associate with being a melodramatic 16-year-one-time millennial: "Since U Been Gone" was written past pop lords Max Martin and Dr. Luke, who ripped its entire musical structure from the far more than poetic Aye Yeah Yeahs hit, "Maps," and then—after being passed upwardly by both Pink and Hilary Duff—was sung by the very first winner of the and then-fledgling reality TV show American Idol. The AIM-friendly "U" in the title is just the icing on the cake. —Bereznak

5. "Ms. Jackson," Outkast

Most heartbreaking lyric: "Forever never seems that long until you're grown / And detect that the day-past-mean solar day ruler can't be too wrong"

Sometimes breaking up with your significant other's family is just as hard equally breaking upwardly with them. Large Boi and André 3000 understood that on "Ms. Jackson," a song defended to Kolleen Maria Wright, the mother of Erykah Badu, with whom André had a child. Iii Stacks's poetry is particularly poignant—his intentions were good, but things took a turn for the worse. Information technology'south a harsh reality: Most relationships are born with an expiration date, no thing how bright the flame burned at the commencement. Equally far equally apology songs go, it's pretty nuanced and sincere. And Wright seems to have bought it: Erykah said in 2016 that her female parent even has a "MSJACKSON" license plate. —Sayles

4. "I Will Always Love You," Whitney Houston

Almost heartbreaking line: "Please don't weep / Nosotros both know I'thou not what yous, yous need"

Dolly Parton wrote one of the most dynamic love songs ever with "I Will Always Beloved Y'all." Whitney Houston, who sang a encompass for the movie The Babysitter, made a worldwide hitting with her astounding range. Both versions are wonderful for different reasons, though Parton's honeyed, wobbly original is best for heartbreak. For 1, information technology's authentic: She wrote the song for her one-time manager and professional person partner, Porter Wagoner, subsequently she decided to leave him. Parton is sympathetic, yet adamant to go. As she sings in the bridge, it'south bloodshot. They are both amend off this manner, she argues, but wishes him goose egg but "joy and happiness." Ane of the hardest relationship lessons is that two people can beloved each other and information technology however non be right for either—thanks to Dolly and Whitney, it was one learned early on. —O'Shaughnessy

3. "I Can't Brand You lot Love Me," Bonnie Raitt

Most heartbreaking line: "I'll close my eyes / Then I won't run into / The love yous don't feel when you're property me"

Yous might be a girlfriend, a hubby, a partner, or fifty-fifty a friend with benefits. Whatever role you play in service of love, information technology comes with a characterization that sets expectations. There is clarity and comfort in knowing where y'all stand up with someone. But despite all of our semantics and promises, the terrifying reality of our love lives is that love itself can be a ruthlessly nonbinding agreement, an at-will system. Fifty-fifty more than frightening is that information technology's oft our hearts—not us—calling the shots.

What sets "I Can't Make You Love Me" apart from most breakdown songs is that it takes place at the most painful signal of a breakup: credence. It's not a post-breakup anthem of empowerment or a drastic plea to stay together. It's the total forcefulness of the disorienting ane-two punch of loss and loneliness. It's the world-shattering moment when you surrender the fight.

Bonnie Raitt'southward arresting performance of this song (written past Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin) carries the weight of a lifetime in and out of love. She sets downwards her slide guitar, sits Bruce Hornsby down at the piano, and sings the absolute fuck out of this vocal with conviction and grace. The vocal used on the Luck of the Draw album recording was Bonnie's outset take. "I Can't Brand You Love Me" has been covered past countless artists, included on several Greatest Songs Of All Fourth dimension lists, and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

The songs that affect us well-nigh securely are the ones that unite us through the almost homo of shared experiences. Somewhen, we all learn that you can't make someone'due south eye feel "something it won't." But should y'all one day find yourself at stone bottom, of a sudden alone in darkness—whether it's your outset fourth dimension or your 14th—y'all tin feel a little bit less alone knowing that Bonnie's been at that place, too. —James

two. "Yous Oughta Know," Alanis Morissette

Nearly heartbreaking line: "Does she know how you told me you lot'd hold me until you died, till you died / Only you're still live"

Alanis Morrisette was 19 years old when she recorded that ballad of bitterness "Yous Oughta Know" in one have at xi p.m. "All those vocals are but her at the cease of the night," said her cowriter Glen Ballard in an oral history of the album Jagged Little Pill, "singing something she just wrote." The upshot was a revelation in its ragged emotion, all fingernail scratches and fellatio, a work of art centering the seething spirals of rage. (That it was possibly inspired past Uncle Joey remains both iconic and deeply weird, but also makes sick sense: You haven't truly been jilted until y'all've been jilted past someone who's not even that absurd, yous know?) "Y'all Oughta Know" totally scandalized my mom every time it came on the radio in the '90s, and what'southward more, it features both Flea on bass and Dave Navarro on the guitar. What more could you want—other than sweet, sweet vengeance? —Baker

1. "Imperial Pelting," Prince

About heartbreaking line: "I never meant to cause you any sorrow / I never meant to cause you any pain"

Purple rain, according to an unsourced quote that'southward widely attributed to Prince Rogers Nelson, is the result of blood mixing with the sky, which is a sort of apocalyptic drama that merely Prince could conjure. But you don't even need to sympathise what purple rain is to feel "Purple Rain," a ability ballad to end all power ballads.

Some breakup songs are hateful, some are mournful, others are empowering. Simply "Regal Rain" has the ability to feel like everything all at one time, a near-religious experience of a vocal that has the ability to heal like no other. In times of trouble, put "Imperial Rain" on, and let him guide you. —Gruttadaro

piercethourojece38.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.theringer.com/music/2020/2/14/21137264/50-greatest-breakup-songs-ever-ranking