Now that Valentine's Day has passed, it is the perfect time to get back to reality and listen to songs dealing with break-ups, heartaches, spoiled relationships and built-up aggression.
Here is a tribute heartbreak album to those of us who went without a valentine this year. The heartache of these bands may have been painful, but it translated to commercial success.
Let's start out with a classic hit-one that not only focused on break-up, but one that solidified Paul McCartney as the songwriting genius he is. The acoustic ballad \Yesterday"" perfects down-in-the-dumps blues as Paul McCartney questions what happened to his girl.
McCartney wrote a song about his emotional turmoil, which made his problems fade away. As a result, The Beatles salvaged a number one hit from an emotionally wrenching situation.
While Paul McCartney gently contemplated his lost-love, Guns N' Roses took a totally different approach to breaking-up, described in the song, ""Used to Love Her.""
Instead of metaphorically ending things in the song, he literally ended her life. If that was not enough, he buried her in his backyard because he would miss her. To top things off, Axl still hears her complain at the end of the song.
The killing spree continues with the emergence of The Killers. Their emotional chaos comes with two songs: ""Mr. Brightside"" and ""Jenny Was a Friend of Mine."" Mr. Brightside portrays a jealous ex-boyfriend imagining his ex-girlfriend her with another guy. The utter madness of the boyfriend's mental state is revealed in ""Jenny Was a Friend of Mine"" and the death of the girlfriend. In The Killers' case, writing about infidelity, jealousy and crime proved to be to their advantage.
The Strokes' upbeat song ""Someday"" seems joyfully proud of the inevitable end of what used to be a valuable, fun and carefree relationship. This dance-worthy track doesn't seem to be about breaking up and moving on upon first listen, but the words reveal Julian Casablanca's struggle with his girlfriend as he says, ""Alone we stand together we fall apart."" ""Someday"" shows the positive side of being single and ridding ourselves of somebody who just brings us down. The melody of the song offers comfort that hopefully someday things will turn around.
Alanis Morissette's ""You Oughta Know"" screamed not just sadness, but pure rage at her cheating boyfriend, possibly even Dave Coulier, ""Uncle Joey"" of ""Full House"" and ""Surreal Life"" fame.
Morissette's luck changed for the better because this song and album brightened her spirits, and she turned heads in the music business.
Gwen Stefani found a more sensitive and honest way to write about break-up in ""Don't Speak."" This song describes the harsh break-up between bassist Tony Kanal and Stefani. The song epitomizes everything a girl doesn't want to hear as Stefani sings, ""Don't tell me 'cuz it hurts.""
What was a depressing moment in Stefani's life became a joyous event for the band because the melodies and angst-driven lyrics in Tragic Kingdom allowed No Doubt to become one of the best, most critically acclaimed bands of our generation.
And lastly, we would not be complete without the best break-up album ever recorded-Beck's Sea Change. Not one song can be isolated from the work because it would not do Beck's masterpiece justice.
The album did not just explore emotions-it became an epic-allowing Beck to be classified into a completely different realm of music. Sea Change proves that a wretched and hard break-up can magically transform into a masterpiece of music.
While these songs demonstrate an outpouring of emotion, heartache and turmoil, something good has come from each song. We should all learn a lesson from these songs: While we might experience hardships with relationships, in the end something even better will come our way. For these bands it was fame, fortune, success and for us it may be that or true love. Besides, we always have next year.
Beth Wick's column runs every Wednesday. She can be reached at eawick@wisc.edu.
