Valentine’s Day has recently passed, leaving many to look forward to next year’s bouquet of flowers, heart-splattered teddy bears and cardboard boxes full of calories. Good for you, I’m glad Hallmark/Walmart/the entire advertising industry has your continued attention, affections, and disposable income.  I, however, am left to ponder deeper, more meaningful issues. Like Phil Collins.

Yes, Phil Collins. His popularity may have waned since his heyday twenty years ago, but his contributions to heart-broken music fans everywhere will live forever.  Not until you’ve been pulled over for negligent driving while wailing to “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” at 2:30 in the morning, have you really lived. 

“I’m sorry, officer, but it was the final chorus.”

Nobody enjoys break-ups — mutual, bitch-slapped, or otherwise — yet there’s a part of me that always takes pleasure in the break-up playlist. You know what I’m talking about. The self-indulgent, grossly sentimental, nauseatingly cheesy compilation of songs that drive your roommates crazy and requires a near intervention to be pulled away from.   

“Sarah, just put down the U2, okay? Slowly, quietly…but please don’t throw it out the window this time.  We have pedestrians to worry about.”

The dirty habit began when I was in the third grade, amidst a heavy R&B phase. Blame it on Boyz II Men, the mid-90’s or the bowl-cut sporting sixth grader who broke my heart, but once I made the connection that sad singers sing sad songs because someone else makes them sad, I was never the same.  “I’m down on bended kneeeeee,” I’d cry into my Minnie Mouse pillow at night.  “Until you come back to meeeeeee.” (Yes, I recognize that I was a bizzare child.)

By college, friends literally became afraid of putting untitled discs into my car stereo, half-expecting the Smiths to come sobbing back out at them. For this reason I started labeling my CDS with titles and dates.

“August of ’07 was a good time for you, right?” passengers ask. “How about September?” 

I have break-up mixes for break-ups that haven’t even happened yet, for break-ups that probably never will happen. For instance, the “I’m sorry, but I have to leave you for a series of space odysseys” collection is oddly charming. I have plenty of up-beat compilations as well, like “You’re pretty cute”, “I just won a lifetime achievement award!”, and “Bill O’Reilly has been fired”. They’re great in their celebratory little ways, but not nearly as satisfying as “Ow. My heart Is being fed to death row inmates”, or “I wish you’d broken my arm instead, you *****”.

So what exactly constitutes the ultimate break-up playlist? A few songs have held on to their weepy places this past decade of dating.  

• Aerosmith – Cryin’
• Bonnie Raitt – I Can’t Make You Love Me
• Hall and Oates – She’s Gone
• Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares to You
• Fleetwood Mac – Go Your Own Way
• Alanis Morissette – You Oughta Know

 Some modern gems have slipped in as well.

• A Fine Frenzy – Almost Lover
• Imogen Heap – Hide and Seek
• the Script – Breakeven
• Radiohead – There, There
• Amos Lee – Colors

But ultimately, the power of the playlist lies in the ears of the creator.  What tops your list?

Apart from their melodic powers of healing, break-up playlists serve an entirely separate (and more important) purpose. When the day comes to dust off those sacred, heart-tormenting songs, pop them into your stereo, and feel nothing, a small victory has been claimed in your soul.  Recognize it. Own it.  Celebrate it.  So maybe your ex is happily married with two children and a house that’s been profiled on HGTV.  Maybe he or she stumbled into a large sum of money, or was recently featured in a Vogue article, dressed in expensive couture and fondling a model. But you? You’re now able to sing along to “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” without flinching.  And that, my friends, makes you the real winner.

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