I’ve recently gone through/am going through a breakup. Breakups are never easy. There are never any civilized short cuts. No easy way to redefine your relationship. No way to slip into a friendship without resentment. No way to keep yourself or the other from being hurt. No one person to blame. No easy answers.

One thing I do know is that many of us turn to music to consume us after it happens. Sometimes we use it to wallow in our pain. Some use it to get angry, others to get happy again.

“This American Life” has a great episode about breakups including an interview with Phil Collins about breakup songs. You can listen to it for free here if you’re interested or dealing with a breakup yourself.

There have been several songs that have been significant to me during breakups. For instance, “Ex Girl to the Next Girl” by Gangstarr, “You Don’t Know What Love Is” by The White Stripes, and “Leaving on a Jet Plane” by John Denver with honorable mention to the Mos Def cover.

The Gangstarr song allows me to be angry. It allows me to brush a lil dirt off my shoulder. Of course I always know the answers aren’t that simple. I’m not nearly brazen enough a person to just forget someone important to me in the snap of a finger…but for 4 minutes and 41 seconds I’m able to pretend I’m that hardcore. It’s sort of like sucking in my gut in front of the mirror and flexing my “muscles.”

I like The White Stripes song because it has hope for the relationship in the future. It has something figured out and has come to terms with the problem with a hint of bitterness but ultimately the “What if?” remains open. “You’re not hopeless or helpless and I hate to sound cold…”

Though the John Denver song is not particularly a breakup song leaving is involved with a possibility he won’t come back. I also like this song for its hope for the future of the relationship. “Every place I go I’ll think of you/Every song I sing I’ll sing for you/When I come back, I’ll bring your wedding ring.” I also relate to it because the singer admits fault and doesn’t just blame his lover, “There’s so many times I’ve let you down/So many times I’ve played around/I tell you now, they don’t mean a thing.” No easy answers.

So the questions I pose to you:
Do you have some favorite breakup songs? Are there songs that have helped you get over someone, move on, or even fix things? Have there been any songs significant in helping you cope or make your decision? What are they? Don’t be afraid to comment. You might help someone… like me…

My Mother lost a lot of her hearing when I was around six years old. We were living on the South Side of Chicago on the corner of a busy intersection. She wore hearing aids and read lips so she, though it was not an easy time, fought through it as she always does. If you ran into her now you probably would not even notice that she only hears about thirty percent of what you do.

When the windows were open on summer days the traffic on that corner was too much for her…the honking, tires screeching, cross-guard yelling. There was way too much background noise; for her it was like trying to hold serious conversation next to speakers in a nightclub. So we moved to Oak Park, the first suburb west of the city. We wanted to find clear sound space for our family. We eliminated distracting noise by turning off the television and stereos. We wanted to turn off the static in my Mom’s head. Maybe this is why everyone in my family talks so loud.

There was rarely music in our house growing up because of this. The major exception was Christmas. When December rolled around we listened to “John Denver & The Muppets: A Christmas Together” on constant loop. We still do that. Other than that, my Dad threw on the occasional Gregorian Chant or my Sister would play “November Rain” by Guns N’Roses on the piano in the living room. Mostly though, the only noise we filled the house on Kenilworth Avenue with was our voices.

As a result of a somewhat silent house in that regard I didn’t get a firm grasp on the music world. So when sixth and seventh grade rolled around and kids around me were trying to define themselves by the music they listened to I was pretty lost. I owned the “FernGully: The Last Rainforest” soundtrack on cassette. Robin Williams does a rap on it as a bat who suffered through animal lab-tests. It’s way more political than you’d think. Regardless, it didn’t make me cool in junior high.

By 14 I had hair down to my shoulder while the sides of my head underneath were shaved. I wore pimples and chain wallets. I was chubby and awkward. Girls didn’t like me, at least not in the way I wanted them to. I wanted to rebel. I was angry…at myself, my teachers, my parents, the dog, the church, the sidewalk, the attic, the basement, you name it. I experimented with marijuana and by “experimented with marijuana” I mean I smoked weed constantly. It was a very long and tenuous experiment.

So many of my friends found their MTV niche, like if they went on Total Request Live the producers would understand exactly where to place them in the audience. You, with the dark eye makeup, stand over there with the other Beetle Juice lookin’ kids. You, with the Abercrombie shirt, stand in front. You, with the pants hanging off your ass, go grab your crotch in the back and wave your hands like you just don’t care.

Where would they have placed me? I didn’t learn about The Rolling Stones or Janis Joplin from my folks. I didn’t understand jazz. I knew nothing about MoTown. I had no firm footing. Somehow, I stumbled across a cassette that read “Americas Most Wanted” across the front. It was an Ice Cube album. It lead me to other artists like NWA, DJ Quik, Snoop, Dr. Dre, Nate Dogg, Ice T, Cypress Hill, 8 Ball & MJG, Bone Thugs N Harmony…I had discovered Gangster Rap. They swore and when I hit play it would shake the central heating pipes in our home.

Why would a quiet chubby white kid living in the suburbs fall in love with music written out of some of the more dangerous places in the country? This music was not my voice. I didn’t grow up in government experiments called “projects” or have to face drug dealers while walking to school. I didn’t have to deal with being racially profiled by police (or if I did the profile they assumed me into didn’t get me in trouble). I wasn’t stuck. I had options and a comfortable living situation. The music wasn’t for me.

So why? Gangster rap was written out of rebellion. It was angry. I was angry. I related. In this day and age anyone under the age of 18 doesn’t have much of a voice and they’re constantly told what to do. They can’t vote, can’t control what time they wake up, what classes they have to go to, even what they eat is assigned to a large extent. I felt ignored, like no one understood me, like I needed to fight back. Gangster Rap was a voice for the voiceless. That made sense to me. I wanted a voice, a platform to communicate, and I wanted to do it in my own language.