The heartbreak songs

[anghara]

I'm not entirely sure why I thought about this right now - certainly not in the throes of romantic heartbreak right now, anyway. But someone started talking about the songs of your life, and this one just swam into focus, sharply.

Click to view

I can remember walking out of the house of the man I had thought I would probably spend the rest of my life with,

Comments

[grumpymartian]

Maybe because Meat Loaf has a new album that came out last week? I know that's the reason I've had other Meat Loaf songs in my head recently...

[eneit]

to forgive is not to forget.

[caper_est]

A lot of Meat Loaf's stuff gets to me: that one's quite high on the list. My late Dad was very much into him, which... doesn't diminish the impact.

Some of the most utterly heartbreaking songs I know, and love, are by Kate and Anna McGarrigle. There's Song for Gaby (written at their mother's passing: it's lovely, and I almost can't listen to it at all); and for romance, the post-divorce song I Eat Dinner, or the simple, naked pain of Heart Like a Wheel...

Kate McG died young, this year: cut me up, thinking at once of all the times her songs have played me through.

[vortexae]

Meatloaf performed "Read 'em and Weep"? REALLY? (Visits Wikipedia.) REALLY!

...I grew up listening to the Barry Manilow version.

(Even though it's not one of the songs that got glued to a personal heartarche, I never could sing along without tearing up by the end.)

[anghara]

When I was looking for a video of it I tripped over the Manilow version and was astonished to find one - this is such a raw, passionate, *bleeding* song, and Meat Loaf puts so much PAIN into it - and frankly I couldn't imagine the Manilow treatment to be anything other than smooth lounge entertainment, and hey, it was... I'm sorry, but this is just SO not a Barry Manilow song!