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What makes a vocal a "breakdown song"? Does it accept to be empowering, à la "I Volition Survive" or about of the songs on Lemonade? Should it be for the lonely, like Carole King'due south "It's Too Late" or Bob Dylan'southward "If You Come across Her, Say Hello"? Does it take to address the breakup in the lyrics? (Taylor Swift has many entrants in this category, and Marvin Gaye penned an unabridged anthology virtually his divorce.) What about songs with a famous backstory, like "Cry Me a River" or whatever track off of Rumours?

We hither at The Ringer believe that since heartache comes in many forms, and then should the breakup song. And in honour of Valentine'due south Day, we decided to dig deep into the genre. Beneath, you'll notice our ranking of the 50 greatest breakup songs of all fourth dimension, every bit voted on past our staff. The list spans several decades and many different moods, only all are rooted in some type of hurting. There was only ane dominion for the final ranking: just one vocal per artist was included to avoid Dolly Parton or fifty-fifty Drake from dominating.

So if you're solitary, fire up our playlist and weep along as you lot read our thoughts on each entrant. If you're happily attached, you tin can withal dive in—these are some of the greatest songs always recorded, and that'southward truthful whether yous're in your feelings or not. Possibly y'all'll proceeds a greater appreciation for your current relationship. After all, breakup songs resonate only when you know what it'south like to lose in beloved. —Justin Sayles

50. "We Are Never Always Getting Back Together," Taylor Swift

Most heartbreaking line: "You would hide away and find your peace of mind / With some indie record that's so much cooler than mine"

One of the most savage breakup songs in history, "Nosotros Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" encapsulates the severe "fuck that guy!" energy that follows a long-overdue departing of ways. We've all had that post-fight rant with our friends: "Ugh … and so he calls me up and he's like, 'I yet love you lot,' and I'm like … 'I just … I mean this is exhausting, y'all know, like, we are never getting back together. Similar, ever.'" Flippant, triumphant, and entirely exhausted by All Men, Taylor Swift gave us the perfect soundtrack for breakup recovery. — Kate Halliwell

49. "I Miss You," Blink-182

Most heartbreaking line: "I demand somebody and ever / This sick 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 about this number are Travis Barker's simple just persistent drumbeat and Tom DeLonge'southward entrance on the 2d verse. It'south part of the grand pop punk tradition of showing yous mean business by going up an octave, of which "I Miss You" (along with the Starting Line'due south "The All-time of Me") is the exemplar.

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

48. "It'southward As well Late," Carole Rex

Near heartbreaking line: "But we but can't stay together, don't y'all experience information technology, too? / Still I'm glad for what we had and how I in one case loved you lot"

"It's Too Tardily" is a crushing ode to the well-nigh common kind of breakdown. The natural process of two people growing autonomously is as heartbreaking as it is commonplace, and Rex sings in a tone perfectly situated between her sorrow and the shrugging admission that "we really did try to make information technology." Her conversational delivery early in the vocal brings us into the living room, diner, or sidewalk where "the talk" between her and her about-to-be-ex is happening: "One of us is irresolute, or mayhap nosotros just stopped trying," she sings, plain laying out the central, blameless reasons for why most people end up separating. The song is defined by its maturity and its conciliatory attitude, just as with actual breakup conversations, that doesn't make it any easier to hear. —Cory McConnell

47. "United nations-Intermission My Center," Toni Braxton

Near heartbreaking line: "I can't forget the day you left / Time is so unkind"

This is a perfect case of the kind of breakup song y'all hear on the radio (or, in the late '90s, possibly the social club—the Frankie Knuckles house remix still goes) and, on a normal twenty-four hours, just hear another pop song, but when you lot're experiencing heartache, what originally sounded like songwriting clichés get the truest words you've e'er heard. "I accept cried a lot of nights," you think, getting out of bed for the first time in days to grab a scroll of toilet paper since you ran out of Kleenex. "Life is roughshod without you hither beside me," yous murmur, staring into the bleak chasm of loneliness you now know every bit life. "I would literally do anything on God'southward green world to hear you say yous honey me once again," yous realize with the greatest clarity you've always experienced. Anyway, where are my altos at? This is our karaoke song. — Kjerstin Johnson

46. "Mr. Brightside," the Killers

Well-nigh heartbreaking line: "Now they're going to bed and my stomach is ill / And it's all in my head"

Perchance it's not exactly right to call "Mr. Brightside" a breakdown vocal; maybe it'south more accurate to call it a right-earlier-the-breakdown song, an I-imagined-my-girlfriend-was-adulterous-on-me-and then-intensely-that-she-really-started-cheating-on-me song. But that'due south all actually clunky, so permit's accept beingness slightly incorrect for the sake of cleanliness. Either way, "Mr. Brightside" is an iconic mid-aughts song that's perfect for yell-karaoking and that pulls off the difficult play a trick on of just repeating ane poetry over and over. Likewise, Eric Roberts in the video. —Andrew Gruttadaro

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

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

The dynamic duo of Daryl Hall and John Oates became feather-haired, MTV-borne superstars in the '80s, simply their rise to greatness begins here, with the breakout striking from their 2d anthology, 1973'southward oddly/heartbreakingly named Abandoned Luncheonette. "She's Gone" is luscious and silky and deceptively low-cal, all Motown grandeur by way of blue-eyed Philly soul, merely that lightness only underscores the exquisite heaviness of murmured poesy lines like "Go upwardly in the morning, wait in the mirror / Worn as the toothbrush hanging in the stand." (Or probably it's "One less toothbrush," which of course is fifty-fifty heavier.) The chorus, by contrast, is gigantic and imperial and burdensome, punctuated by cloudbursting lamentations of "She'south gone! / Oh why? / Oh why?" The boys only got bigger from hither, only they certainly never got sadder. —Rob Harvilla

44. "Tyrone," Erykah Badu

Virtually heartbreaking line: "I merely desire it to be, yous and me, like it used to be, babe / But ya don't know how to act"

The second-best moment on this viciously sultry boring jam, the crown gem of Erykah Badu's 1997 album Live, is the stupendous opening line: "I'yard gettin' tired of your shit / Y'all don't e'er buy me nothin'." The first-best moment is all the women in the crowd immediately shrieking with delight and, one fears, recognition. "Tyrone" is named for one of an unnamed deadbeat lover's numerous deadbeat friends: "Every time we get somewhere," Badu purrs with lethal say-so, "I gotta achieve down in my purse / To pay your way and your homeboy's way and sometimes your cousin's way." It is the gender-flipped riposte to Friday's "Farewell, Felicia," and in fact turned upwardly as a joke in 2000'south Next Friday; it "followed me thru my career like an obsessed X swain," as Badu put it on Instagram in 2017, while shouting out her backup singers, whose sardonic and sublime "Phone call him!" chant is the 3rd-best moment. —Harvilla

43. "Love Is a Battlefield," Pat Benatar

Most heartbreaking line: "Do I stand up in your way / Or am I the all-time thing you've had?"

The agonizingly propulsive signature striking from flamethrower-voiced '80s pop queen Pat Benatar laments not so much a breakup as a nearly-breakup in progress, an acknowledgement that true love means nearly breaking up pretty much all the time: "Believe me / Believe me / I can't tell you lot why / But I'yard trapped by your love / And I'm chained to your side." It's a karaoke classic you have no business attempting, a cheeseball Reagan-era smash of eternal profundity, and a striking announcement that sometimes the only thing worse than splitting upward is not splitting up: "Do I stand in your style / Or am I the all-time thing y'all've had?" she wails with genuine desperation, and the answer, of course, is both. —Harvilla

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

Nearly heartbreaking line: "Throwing shit around, the whole identify screwed up / Maybe I should call Mase and then that he could pray for us"

We're not even talking virtually the whole song—we're talking about 20 or so seconds of Bink product after Kanye's second verse, merely earlier Rick Ross's only verse, arguably one of the best in his career. In it, he describes West'southward near-fatal car crash in 2002 as an aborted climb "upward the Lord's ladder," and honestly, that's exactly what the collection of power strings sound like on this bridge. A climb upward the Lord'southward ladder, a divergence from Earth, a one-way trip to anywhere but here. —Micah Peters

41. "Suspicious Minds," Elvis Presley

Virtually heartbreaking line: "Nosotros can't continue together / With suspicious minds / And nosotros tin can't build our dreams / On suspicious minds"

You lot tin can see the ripples of "Suspicious Minds" throughout the class of breakdown song history, from "Train in Vain" to "Dancing on My Own," which, you know, it's Elvis. But across the juxtaposition of its relatively upbeat music and depressing-every bit-hell lyrics, I love the construction of this song, with a peppy guitar intro and verses that build into a chorus that goes from G major to very, very East minor and just doesn't ever really resolve. This might not be the only reason the song fades out only there's no existent suitable catastrophe point for the concluding notes of the chorus, then it ever drops back into a verse or a span or another chorus. "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" resolves more than easily. Just like a broken relationship. —Baumann

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

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

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

39. "Tears Dry out on Their Own," 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's other woman before long"

On "Tears Dry on Their Own," Amy Winehouse demanded that Amy Winehouse take her own 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 author—"Tears" begins in the dumps, in the backwash. Simply during every emotional uncoupling comes the bespeak where you gaze into the mirror, stick your finger in your reflection's chest, and tell them to terminate being such a impaired, whiny baby. —Peters

38. "Needed Me," Rihanna

Most heartbreaking lines: "Fuck your white horse and a carriage / Bet you lot never could imagine / Never told you yous could have information technology / You lot needed me"

This song is so fiddling and I love it. Rihanna basically made a hit off the "Sike, you thought!" meme and DJ Mustard added an unforgettable beat behind it. This is one of those bangers that you and your girls blast post-breakup, pre-going-out. Then, afterward you lot all sing in unison: "Don't get it twisted / You was merely another nigga on the hit list / Tryna fix your inner issues with a bad bitch," y'all all burst into laughter thinking virtually the man who is now barely a retentiveness. Rihanna'southward confidence and savageness is really on an untouchable level. (Retrieve, this vocal is on the same album where she sings "sex with me is and so amazing" over and over.) Long may she reign. —Jordan Ligons

37. "And so Sick," Ne-Yo

Most heartbreaking line: "Gotta alter my answering machine, now that I'm alone / 'Cause correct now it says that we can't come to the phone"

The earworm of a generation! Ne-Yo said no to sappy ballads in more ways than 1 with "And so Sick," giving usa an R&B smash hit for everyone sick of regular, schmegular love songs. Set to the world's catchiest beat, Ne-Yo mourns a past human relationship and all the 24-hour interval-to-day changes that come with moving on. "Gotta modify my answering machine, at present that I'm alone / 'Cause right now information technology says that we can't come to the phone … Gotta fix that calendar I have that's marked July 15 / Considering since there's no more you, in that location'south no more anniversary." Xv years later, we still tin can't turn off the radio. —Halliwell

36. "We Belong Together," Mariah Carey

Most heartbreaking line: "When you left I lost a function of me / It'due south still so hard to believe / Come back baby, delight / 'Crusade we belong together"

*Sighs.* This is easily the most played-out, deplorable breakup song of the early on 2000s. Everyone thought near someone who could've/should've been their soul mate when this dropped in 2005. Just now if it comes on the radio and you're either happily single or in a solid relationship, your optics volition glaze over, guaranteed. When the starting time two seconds of the infamous beat out come through my speakers, I'g already changing the station. It's just and so annoying, so Mariah.

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

35. "If You See Her, Say Howdy," Bob Dylan

Most heartbreaking line: "Say for me that I'1000 all right, though things become kind of ho-hum / She might recollect that I've forgotten her, don't tell her it isn't so"

The inspiration for Bob Dylan's masterful Blood on the Tracks has always been debated. Critics have long assumed that the album is well-nigh Dylan's separation from his wife, Sara. The couple's son, Jakob, reportedly believes that Claret is about his parents. But Dylan himself has steadily denied that his masterpiece is autobiographical, even saying instead that it's based on … Chekhov'southward 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 thing. Claret strikes such a chord because the heartache information technology mines feels at in one case deeply personal and universal.

That'southward most palpable on "If You lot Run across Her, Say How-do-you-do," which brings u.s.a. into a fractured relationship in a way that'southward both effortlessly relatable ("We had a falling out, similar lovers often will") and hyper-specific ("And to think of how she left that night, it still brings me a chill"). Information technology'south not Dylan'due south flashiest or heaviest or best song, but information technology is my favorite, a gentle, intimate portrait of lost dearest and lasting anguish. Like so much of his all-time work, it'south propelled past its poetry, the raw insights about how it feels to be live. The song cycles through the same phases that then many of us do while processing heartbreak: denial, despair, anger, desire. It floats on a current of remorse ("Sundown, yellowish moon, I replay the by / I know every scene by eye, they all went by and so fast") nevertheless manages to convey the kind of longing that leads, charily, back toward hope ("If she's passing back this way, I'm non that hard to find / Tell her she can await me up, if she'due south got the time"). Later enough listens, and enough heartache of your ain, you realize that "If Yous See Her, Say Hullo" isn't really a breakup vocal. It'south a love letter of the alphabet. — Mallory Rubin

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

Virtually heartbreaking line: "Stand up abreast the fireplace / Take that expect from off your face / 'Cause you ain't always gonna burn my middle out"

The closest I've e'er come to living in an episode of Glee was when my high school French class spontaneously bankrupt out singing "Don't Expect Back in Anger." I don't recollect why, but it cemented this song (at least for me) as a carol of communal weltschmerz, rather than personal sadness or regret, like a fin-de-siècle "You'll Never Walk Alone." (For example: "Don't Look Back in Acrimony" became a kind of unofficial anthem after the Manchester bombing in 2017.) Oasis knows a thing or two about writing for the communal sing-forth, the importance of the languid, memorable melody and the propulsive chord change—this song would carry well-nigh the same emotional weight if it were merely a title and a chorus. —Baumann

33. "Every Breath You Take," the Police

Most heartbreaking line: "Since y'all've gone I've been lost without a trace / I dream at night, I tin can only run into your confront"

This spectacularly maudlin New Wave carol, which anchored the Police's 1983 goliath Synchronicity and reigned equally ane 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 depict spurned honey in terms of surveillance as it describes total state surveillance in terms of spurned love: "Every motility you lot make / Every vow you intermission / Every smile you lot fake / Every merits you lot stake." And then on. "I'll be watching you," Sting concludes a couple dozen times throughout, but it's the chest-pounding bridge where the trio's creepy-soulful frontman does some of his best belting, his best pleading, his best 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-bound on the James Bail author's luxe Jamaican estate, which might not be creepy, but it's certainly weird. —Harvilla

32. "Don't Speak," No Doubt

Most heartbreaking line: "Every bit nosotros die, both you and I / With my caput in my hands, I sit down and cry"

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

No Doubt's first hitting is a work of art, total of raw, youthful emotion and complex arrangements. It's cute, brutal, painful, and incendiary, all at once. —Gruttadaro

31. "Thinkin Tour Yous," Frank Body of water

About heartbreaking lines: "Do y'all not recollect so far ahead? / 'Cause I been thinkin' bout forever"

Sometimes y'all have to lie to yourself to become through heartache. They weren't good enough for me. I tin practice meliorate. I didn't dear them, I merely thought they were cute. Frank Body of water'due south "Thinkin Bout You" exposes that kind of posturing for what it is: a facade. No, I wasn't crying about you, and by the fashion, I also own waterfront belongings in Idaho. Frank'southward clearly all the same hung up on the past even if his sometime flame isn't. And the simply way to work through the pain is to drib the lying and come clean with himself. It's tender, information technology'south sweetness, only most of all, information technology's honest. —Sayles

thirty. "I'yard Goin' Down," Mary J. Blige

About heartbreaking lines: "Why'd you have to say goodbye? / Wait what you've done to me / I can't cease these tears from fallin' from my eyes"

No matter your current human relationship condition, yous will for sure sing your eye out when this song comes on. I exercise not care, I am Mary J. when the chorus hits. By the stop of the song—a cover of Rose Royce's 1976 single—you've "gone down" so much that you're on the flooring, eyes closed, hoop earrings in, and belting, "My whole world'south upward-[dramatic pause]-side down!" I can't exist the only 1, correct?

Too, remember when Tamera sang this song for the talent show on Sister, Sister? Iconic. —Ligons

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

Near heartbreaking lines: "I could put my arms effectually every male child I see / Simply they'd only remind me of yous"

Breakups are freeing; breakups are imprisoning. When yous come up out of a yearslong relationship, you have to relearn how to alive without that person in your life. Parts of that process are beautiful—reconnecting with old friends, picking upwards a new hobby, shaking off the shackles. But the breakup sticks with yous. Yous run into your ex's best friend at the bar, or you hear a song that you both loved. Sometimes, it's a minor annoyance. Other times, it's an world-shattering outcome. Yous're relearning how to live, but living is difficult.

I can't think of a song that better captures that duality than "Zilch Compares ii U," the 1990 O'Connor striking originally penned by Prince in 1985. Y'all tin can do whatever you desire: You lot can party all night, y'all can swallow at a fancy restaurant, you tin put your arms around all the boys and girls y'all'd like, but information technology doesn't matter. It's not them, and aught will be. Your best hope is just giving in and living for yourself. —Sayles

28. "Marvin's Room," Drake

About heartbreaking line: "The adult female that I would try / Is happy with a good guy"

Drake is at his best when he's destructive considering he masks the gaslighting with a softer sadness. "The woman that I would try / Is happy with a skillful guy," he sings. Is he happy for her? The lines propose that there's at to the lowest degree a chance. Drake pauses, then goes total Drizzy Deleterious: "Merely I've been drinkin' then much / That I'ma phone call her anyhow." He proceeds to tell her that the man she's with isn't good enough to supersede what they had. It's the archetype overstep from an ex, but the longer he goes on, nosotros realize it's more about his pride and conflicting emotions about his life choices than information technology is about her. Drake spirals, telling her he'due south "had sex 4 times this calendar week / I can explicate," that he's sponsoring women, that he can't finish partying and asking for naked pictures. Exactly what your ex-girlfriend wants to hear, I'm sure. At to the lowest degree there's a voicemail interlude. —Haley O'Shaughnessy

27. "Just a Friend," Biz Markie

Most heartbreaking line: "Oh, snap! Judge what I saw? / A fella tongue-kissin' my girl in her oral fissure"

Turns out this woman did non have what Biz Markie needed. As he singsplains, he became kitten smitten with a adult female at 1 of his shows. You lot'd think that this would have happened to him all the time, but it did non. This was "the first daughter I ever talked to," Biz told EW last year. "Every time I would call out to California, a dude would pick upward and hand her the phone. I'd be similar, 'Yo, what's upward [with him]?' She'd say, 'Oh, he'south merely a friend. He'southward nobody.'" Non taking the hint, Biz flew out to California to surprise her a calendar week earlier than planned. When he showed up, there was a guy "tongue-kissing my girl in her mouth."

Biz. My guy. Sit downwards. Let's talk. Starting time off, she was not your girl. Yous met her once. Second, y'all did not catch her tongue-kissing a dude. You stalked her. 3rd, it was extremely obvious that this friend was not simply her friend. What Biz Markie needed was someone to listen to his story and requite him honest feedback almost his predicament. You know, a friend. —Danny Heifetz

26. "Burn," Usher

Nearly heartbreaking line: "But you lot know, gotta allow it become / 'Cause the political party ain't jumpin' similar information technology used to / Fifty-fifty though this might bruise you / Allow information technology fire"

I couldn't imagine someone breaking up with me with the lyrics to this song. Usher is all over the identify. He says he loves me, only our human relationship has to come up to an end; he says he's hurting and he'southward non happy, but he'due south breaking downwards and crying. Deep down he knows it's best, just he hates the thought of me being with someone else. Get your shit together, Usher!

Even so, for all of its confusing back-and-forth, this is a breakup classic. It preaches the ideology of forcing yourself to let go fifty-fifty when you lot don't know what yous're going to do without your boo. After a heartbreak, everyone has found themselves teetering on the line betwixt regret and freedom. Conductor's "Burn" allows you to tap into that while simultaneously yelling out, "It's been fifty-11 days, umpteen hours, and Imma be burnin' till y'all return!" —Ligons

25. "Piece of My Heart," Big Brother & the Holding Visitor

Most heartbreaking line: "Only each fourth dimension I tell myself that I, well I tin can't stand the pain / Only when you hold me in your artillery, I'll sing it in one case again"

If you're ever at your wits' terminate, tragically obsessed with someone who treats you like shit, yous tin find some catharsis in the controlled chaos of Janis Joplin's vocal performance on "Piece of My Heart." Go ahead and scream forth. You lot won't sound as skillful as Janis, but you lot'll certainly experience a hell of a lot better afterward.

One time your anger fades a little, you tin switch over to the original recording of this vocal, released a twelvemonth earlier in 1967 and sung by Erma Franklin (yeah, that's Aretha'south older sister). Or if y'all need some more twang accompanying your despair, you tin attempt the Faith Hill version. I also won't estimate y'all if the only person who 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 Heart" is 1 of the about relatable and enduring songs about Some Fuckboi in the history of fuckbois. The call-and-response structure of the chorus builds those simmering resentments and releases them with a sharp, primal cry. Undoubtedly, there will be new versions of this song until the end of time⁠—considering it's an accented banger—but also because … men. —Matt James

24. "Skinny Love," Bon Iver

Most heartbreaking line: "And I told you to exist patient / And I told you lot to be fine"

A skillful rule for breakup songs is that there has to be a role that you tin can yell forth to, unencumbered by airheaded things like constraint and self-awareness. The chorus of Bon Iver's "Skinny Love" has a groovy one, especially for anyone who'southward just exited a relationship and feels compelled to heap all the arraign on the other party.

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

23. "Agree Up," Beyoncé

About heartbreaking line: "Tin't you see there's no other man higher up you? / What a wicked way to treat the girl that loves you lot"

It's hard to express real hurt over an uptempo beat out and make the heartbreak disarming. Even so Beyoncé is believable 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.e., it'due south Beyoncé coming to terms with Jay-Z being unfaithful. Infidelity brings on a very specific blazon of devastation: You're mad; y'all're miserable; you're humiliated. You switch from i emotion to some other in a matter of minutes. She opens the vocal with confidence: No other woman tin can give what she tin can. "Concur up, they don't dear you lot similar I love yous." In a jiff, she'southward less certain of herself: "What'south worse, looking jealous or crazy?" Beyoncé settles on crazy, so returns to anger. "You allow this good love go to waste product." —O'Shaughnessy

22. "Cry Me a River," Justin Timberlake

Most breaking lyric: "You didn't know all the ways I loved yous, no / So you took a chance / And fabricated other plans"

Entering 2002, Justin Timberlake wasn't regarded every bit much more than than a teeny bopper. His grouping 'NSync was i of the defining groups of the male child band era, and he was its charismatic confront. (The cute ane, 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. And then 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 take to say what you did / I already know, I found out from him") and writes her off for good. He'southward already cried nearly it, and at present information technology'due south her turn. But no amount of her tears can undo the damage; he's gone. You didn't have to do much sleuthing to figure out he was singing about Britney. That celebrity intrigue, Timbaland'due south sharp product, and an instantly memorable music video combined to make "Cry Me a River" the near iconic breakup song of the early on 2000s, catapulting him to another level of stardom. He had split with not only Britney, but likewise his past, and he was ready for the world. —Sayles

21. "With or Without You," U2

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

Naught changes if cypher changes, as they say, and "With or Without You" exists in that hopelessly recursive "I hate that I love you" infinite. This song was U2's starting time no. 1 hit in the U.Due south., even though, Bono has said, "it's a very odd-sounding song … it kind of whispers its style into the world." But it'south not the whispers that resonate almost, nonetheless, information technology's 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'due south "space guitar," engineered to concur a tone as if it were a grudge. "Psychotic restraint" is how Bono characterized the Edge'due south spare work on this track, a description that could double every bit breakup advice. —Katie Bakery

twenty. "Jolene," Dolly Parton

Most heartbreaking line: "And I can easily sympathise / How y'all could easily take my homo / Merely you don't know what he means to me, Jolene"

While other female country singers might've handled their human's newfound fascination with a cute redhead by, say, digging a key into the side of his pretty little souped-upward four-wheel bulldoze, or—just spitballing here—threatening to ship her to Fist City, Parton simply pleads for mercy. The desperate pitch of her appeal, set against a frantic Dorian-mode guitar riff, sets the stakes far higher than those you might find in generally stern country songs nigh cheatin', lyin', and being untrue. Whatsoever armchair scholar of Parton's piece of work can tell you she cloaks feminist manifestos within marketable diddies about everyday experiences. I've always taken the vocal's urgency to imply something that every woman learns eventually: Relationships can exist both romantically fulfilling, and, besides often, an economical lifeboat to a meliorate life. In "Jolene," our narrator isn't merely grasping onto her man, she'southward grasping for survival. —Alyssa Bereznak

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

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

This song was first released by Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1967. A year afterward Marvin Gaye released a slower version of information technology on his anthology In the Groove. Peradventure the song resonated with Gaye because he married a 41-year-old woman when he was only 24, and their wedlock was full of infidelities. "I was in love with the idea of beloved," Gaye once said. Or at to the lowest degree that's what I heard through the grapevine. —Heifetz

xviii. "Ex-Factor," Lauryn Hill

About heartbreaking line: "Where were you lot when I needed you?"

"Ex-Factor" is more than a breakup vocal, it'south most recognizing a toxic relationship earlier yous have the words to call information technology a toxic relationship. Each line, and then honest it hurts, is virtually the fruitless search for reason in a scenario devoid of information technology. Hill's lyrics capture the worst of the worst of a relationship on the rocks: the hurting, the complicity, and the unwillingness to give up on a dearest you recall is still in that location, buried beneath the bullshit.

When information technology hit airwaves again in 2018 on Drake's pandering yet irresistible "Dainty for What," it was almost similar recognizing and reclaiming a by self—1 who might take cried along to the original. At present, as wiser, more Empowered™ listeners, we heard the remixed, catchy hook devoid of its devastating verses and bopped our heads as Drake reminded us of how short life is. Even so, no one can capture the raw, uncomfortable emotion that Lauryn originally did—and no one ever will. —Johnson

17. "You're So Vain," Carly Simon

Most heartbreaking line: "Well, yous said that we made such a pretty pair / And that you would never exit / But you gave away the things you loved / And i of them was me"

Far before Taylor Swift sent her fans on subtweet scavenger hunts, Carly Simon penned a epic kissoff that, cheers to its cocky-referential chorus, left the world wondering whom it was nearly and what they could've possibly done to anger her. More than 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 vocal describes three separate men, Beatty "thinks the whole thing is about him.") We may never know what visitor he kept (cough: Mick Jagger?), merely the lasting power of Simon'south articulate-eyed takedown stands as a referendum on the unchecked male ego, whether its contained in the body of a dashing player or a moody fuckboy. —Bereznak

16. "Dancing on My Own," Robyn

About heartbreaking line: "Yeah, I know it'due south stupid, I simply gotta run into it for myself"

Last yr, following a Robyn show at Madison Square Garden, elated concertgoers continued the political party on the A/C/E train subway platform, breaking into a giddy public performance of "Dancing on My Ain." You lot wouldn't typically await a breakup song to be the i that leads New Yorkers to such displays of collective joy, but most breakup songs aren't similar this one: a song you tin strut to, a club anthem, a scene-stealer, a story of lonesomeness that still finds its solace in a crowd. It's a vocal about moving on—I just came to say goodbye—simply besides about, merely, moving. The singer might be lonely in the corner, and she might know it'due south stupid, just she'due south out there dancing, at to the lowest degree. —Baker

15. "Thank U, Next," Ariana Grande

Most heartbreaking line: "Wish I could say, 'Cheers' to Malcolm / 'Cause he was an affections"

This song is a decision to be washed with suffering over a relationship, to recommit to oneself, to focus on healing and establishing new patterns. To not only rehearse by losses only to envision future victories, and as well to alive in the moment, to be hither now.

This to practise the bodily, day-in, solar day-out work of existence happy. —Peters

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

About heartbreaking line: "It'due south unnatural"

Both the joyous genesis and apple-polishing death knell for billions of '90s junior-high-gymnasium-dance relationships that but lasted the length of the vocal itself, "Stop of the Road," which rose to ability on 1992's Boomerang soundtrack, is i of the biggest hits in popular-music history. Like, "xiii straight weeks atop the Hot 100" big. Like, "The 'One-time Town Road' of Its Mean solar day" big, a tearjerking shout-along anthem for lovelorn belters too devastated to even accept their horses and leave the house. The final a capella chorus is a signature moment in American cultural history, at one time exhilarating and devastating: "Information technology's unnatural / You belong to me / I belong to you." The word unnatural has never sounded so natural, and so miserable. —Harvilla

thirteen. "Dreams," Fleetwood Mac

Most heartbreaking line: "Now here you get again, you say you want your liberty / Well, who am I to keep you down?"

Even xl-plus years on, to hear Stevie Nicks softly moaning, "What y'all had ... and what you lot lost / And what you had ... and what you 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.) As the second (and all-time!) track on 1977'due south zillions-selling Rumours, "Dreams" is both radically overexposed and still somehow criminally underrated, fixed to its iconic place, time, and circumstances simply also shockingly timeless. (Zoë Kravitz rhapsodizes it in the airplane pilot of Hulu's new High Fidelity remake series to prove her rock-nerd bona fides.) Pair it with "Silver Springs" for maximum effect. —Harvilla

12. "How Can You Mend a Broken Eye," Al Green

Most heartbreaking line: "Let me live again"

There'southward heartbreak, and and so there's Al Dark-green heartbreak. (Not to slight the original Bee Gees version—Green is all I know when I'one thousand going through it.) He'southward exasperated from the beginning, wondering whether he'll always recover from the love that went away. The agony is plenty to contemplate nature itself in the chorus: "How can you mend a cleaved heart? / How can you cease the pelting from falling down? / How can you stop the sun from shining? / What makes the world become circular?" Green is begging for answers, for "somebody, please" to come up gear up him. He pleads, "Let me live again." Life equally he knew it is over without this person, and as long as the vocal is on, it feels over for united states of america, too. —O'Shaughnessy

xi. "Torn," Natalie Imbruglia

Well-nigh heartbreaking line: "I'm all out of faith / This is how I feel, I'yard cold and I am shamed / Lying naked on the floor"

There's a bad breakup, there's rock bottom, and and so there'southward beingness "cold and shamed, lying naked on the floor." Natalie Imbruglia's 1997 one-hit wonder (and sneaky cover) doesn't mince words in describing exactly how shitty it feels to put your faith in the wrong man. (Or any man, depending on how difficult you vibe with this song.) "Torn" has taken a plow for the over-covered and over-memed these days, but you're lying if you say you don't nevertheless hit that chorus every time. —Halliwell

10. "I Will Survive," Gloria Gaynor

Nearly heartbreaking line: "So you felt like dropping in and just expect me to be free / Well at present I'm saving all my lovin' for someone who'due south lovin' me"

This 1978 disco colossus is so singular, so monolithic, so wedding-dancefloor-ingrained that it hardly scans as a breakup song at all: Every bit ecstatic and empowering fuck-you anthems get, it is the glamorous grandmother to Lizzo'due south "Truth Hurts" and Ariana Grande's "Thank U, Adjacent" and Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" and roughly 50,000 other self-affirming pop hits. What truly elevates New Jersey diva Gloria Gaynor's all-timer, though, is its sociopolitical import: "I Will Survive" has long been a stirring battle hymn for the LGBTQ community, for survivors of domestic violence, for anyone who tin can relate in any way, frivolously or otherwise, to the bluntly iconic line "I'yard saving all my lovin' for someone who's lovin' me," which of course is everybody. She knows you're afraid; she knows you're petrified. Just she as well knows yous won't stay that manner for long. —Harvilla

9. "Ain't No Sunshine," Nib Withers

Almost heartbreaking line: "Wonder this time where she's gone / Wonder if she's gone to stay"

To make a vocal from 1971 about a video game from 2010: Dante's Inferno is an RPG based loosely on the outset canticle of the Divine One-act. I say loosely considering EA Dante has rippling muscles and a massive scythe, his only protections against the legions of the nighttime, who've stolen his beloved Beatrice. I never played it, but a friend who did described his frustration with the game: Information technology's as if its decision got further away the more fourth dimension he devoted to information technology. A Super Bowl commercial showed Dante sprinting toward Hell's gaping rima oris determined just, you lot know, definitely doomed. As he descends you hear the low croak of Beak Withers'southward voice, pining after a lost lover: "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone, only darkness everyday." My last breakup didn't involve a giant flaming devil monster, merely it did experience like a similarly hopeless uphill boxing. —Peters

8. "Someone Similar You," Adele

Most heartbreaking line: "Sometimes it lasts in dearest, just sometimes information technology hurts instead"

The queen of heartbreak has never been meliorate than on sophomore album 21, and 21 doesn't become much better than "Someone Like You." Adele'due south ode to the one who got away is maybe the about universally adored tearjerker of the past decade; starting with that simple piano line and ending in that crushing hook: "Sometimes it lasts in love, just sometimes it hurts instead." And of course, that vocalisation! Watching the uncomplicated black and white music video now, it's striking how infant-faced Adele was at 21, despite her commitment of a song that displays and so much emotional maturity. She wishes the all-time for her ex ("Old friend, why are you and then shy?"), but damn, she'south still pain. Aren't we all! —Halliwell

vii. "I Desire You Back," The Jackson five

Nearly heartbreaking lyrics: "Someone picked yous from the bunch, one glance was all it took / Now it'due south much as well tardily for me to take a second expect"

Peradventure the virtually outwardly joyous vocal in this entire ranking, "I Want You Back" spins a tale that anyone who's ever taken someone for granted will empathise. An 11-year-old Michael Jackson is at his most precocious here, singing virtually the girl whom he didn't fully appreciate until someone else stole her heart. Now he just wants another take a chance to prove that he knows how to treat her correct. Michael, of course, didn't write the song—it was penned by Berry Gordy and Co.—just he sells it in a fashion that someone two or 3 times his age never could. A leopard tin't change its spots, but if information technology sounds this good trying to convince y'all information technology tin, why not requite it one more take chances? —Sayles

6. "Since U Been Gone," Kelly Clarkson

Most heartbreaking line: "How come I'd never hear you say / 'I just wanna be with yous' (be with yous) / I approximate y'all never felt that way"

There is a moment in every breakup where, after a few weeks of self-pity, you shed your sweatpant cocoon, step outside, and, with the instantaneity of a safe ring snap, all of a sudden know deep within your centre that your ex was an insufferable blowhard. Kelly Clarkson's mosh-adjacent ability pop ballad embodies the newfound cocky-assurance that comes with that realization. It also happens to be enshrined in a pop culture moment that I will forever associate with being a melodramatic 16-year-former millennial: "Since U Been Gone" was written by pop lords Max Martin and Dr. Luke, who ripped its unabridged musical structure from the far more poetic Yeah Aye Yeahs hitting, "Maps," and and then—afterward being passed upwards by both Pinkish and Hilary Duff—was sung past the very showtime winner of the then-fledgling reality Tv set show American Idol. The AIM-friendly "U" in the title is just the icing on the block. —Bereznak

5. "Ms. Jackson," Outkast

Most heartbreaking lyric: "Forever never seems that long until you're grown / And notice that the day-by-twenty-four hour period ruler can't be too wrong"

Sometimes breaking up with your significant other's family is simply as difficult as breaking upwardly with them. Large Boi and André 3000 understood that on "Ms. Jackson," a song dedicated to Kolleen Maria Wright, the mother of Erykah Badu, with whom André had a child. Iii Stacks's verse is especially poignant—his intentions were good, but things took a turn for the worse. It's a harsh reality: Most relationships are born with an expiration date, no matter how bright the flame burned at the offset. Every bit far as apology songs go, it's pretty nuanced and sincere. And Wright seems to accept bought it: Erykah said in 2016 that her mother fifty-fifty has a "MSJACKSON" license plate. —Sayles

4. "I Volition E'er Love You lot," Whitney Houston

Most heartbreaking line: "Please don't cry / We both know I'm non what you, you need"

Dolly Parton wrote i of the most dynamic dear songs ever with "I Volition Always Love Y'all." Whitney Houston, who sang a comprehend for the picture show The Bodyguard, fabricated 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 one, information technology's authentic: She wrote the song for her former managing director and professional partner, Porter Wagoner, subsequently she decided to leave him. Parton is sympathetic, withal determined to go. As she sings in the bridge, it'due south bittersweet. They are both better off this way, she argues, merely wishes him nothing but "joy and happiness." Ane of the hardest relationship lessons is that two people can love each other and it notwithstanding not exist correct for either—thanks to Dolly and Whitney, it was one learned early. —O'Shaughnessy

3. "I Can't Make You Honey Me," Bonnie Raitt

Nigh heartbreaking line: "I'll close my eyes / So I won't run into / The love you don't feel when you're holding me"

You lot might be a girlfriend, a husband, a partner, or even a friend with benefits. Whatever role you play in service of dear, information technology comes with a label that sets expectations. There is clarity and comfort in knowing where yous stand with someone. Only despite all of our semantics and promises, the terrifying reality of our love lives is that beloved itself can be a ruthlessly nonbinding agreement, an at-will organization. Even more than frightening is that it's often our hearts—not us—calling the shots.

What sets "I Can't Make You lot Love Me" apart from about breakup songs is that it takes place at the nigh painful point of a breakup: acceptance. It'south not a post-breakup anthem of empowerment or a desperate plea to stay together. It's the total force of the disorienting one-two punch of loss and loneliness. Information technology's the world-shattering moment when you surrender the fight.

Bonnie Raitt'due south arresting performance of this vocal (written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin) carries the weight of a lifetime in and out of dearest. She sets down 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 offset take. "I Can't Make You Love Me" has been covered by endless artists, included on several Greatest Songs Of All Time lists, and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

The songs that touch us most deeply are the ones that unite usa through the nigh human being of shared experiences. Somewhen, nosotros all learn that you lot can't make someone'due south center feel "something information technology won't." Just should y'all 1 mean solar day discover yourself at stone bottom, of a sudden alone in darkness—whether information technology'due south your get-go fourth dimension or your 14th—you can feel a little chip less lone knowing that Bonnie's been in that location, too. —James

2. "Yous Oughta Know," Alanis Morissette

About heartbreaking line: "Does she know how you told me y'all'd hold me until you died, till you died / But you're still alive"

Alanis Morrisette was nineteen years old when she recorded that carol of bitterness "You Oughta Know" in one take at 11 p.1000. "All those vocals are just her at the end of the nighttime," said her cowriter Glen Ballard in an oral history of the album Jagged Trivial Pill, "singing something she just wrote." The event 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 by Uncle Joey remains both iconic and deeply weird, but besides makes sick sense: You oasis't truly been jilted until you've been jilted by someone who'southward not fifty-fifty that absurd, you lot know?) "Y'all Oughta Know" totally scandalized my mom every time it came on the radio in the '90s, and what's more than, it features both Flea on bass and Dave Navarro on the guitar. What more could you desire—other than sugariness, sweet vengeance? —Baker

1. "Purple Rain," Prince

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

Regal pelting, according to an unsourced quote that's widely attributed to Prince Rogers Nelson, is the result of claret mixing with the sky, which is a sort of apocalyptic drama that only Prince could conjure. Simply yous don't fifty-fifty need to sympathise what purple pelting is to experience "Purple Rain," a power ballad to end all power ballads.

Some breakup songs are hateful, some are mournful, others are empowering. Only "Imperial Pelting" has the ability to experience like everything all at in one case, a near-religious experience of a vocal that has the ability to heal similar no other. In times of problem, put "Royal Pelting" on, and let him guide you. —Gruttadaro

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