Theme
Songs about heartbreak
Interpretations from our editorial team that explore this theme.
-
Muse
Plug In Baby
A breakup song dressed as science fiction, in which a lover is traded for a machine that delivers what human intimacy could not
-
Fleetwood Mac
Dreams
A breakup song delivered as calm prophecy, where the woman walking away tells the man he'll only understand what he lost once the storm passes
-
Kanye West
Flashing Lights
A relationship souring under the heat of fame, where designer status, paparazzi flashbulbs and growing distance between two people all blur into the same disorienting glare
-
Cody Webb
Fall All over Again
A man runs into the ex who once chose someone else, knows exactly how the night could end, and is trying to talk himself out of it before he gives in
-
Calvin Harris & Jazzy
Satisfy
A warning to a serial heartbreaker that the supply of people willing to be hurt by them will eventually run out
-
Ella Langley & Morgan Wallen
I Can't Love You Anymore
A duet about the gap between deciding to leave someone and actually managing to stop wanting them back
-
can’t be blue (캔트비블루)
Within the words i once called love
A breakup song that asks whether the word 'love' meant anything at all, and would rather be stabbed than let go cleanly
-
Redoor
Forever Has Always Been
A quiet Korean indie ballad about accepting that love was never permanent, and asking memory, not the lover, to stay
-
Sam Fender & Olivia Dean
Rein Me In (Edit)
A duet about drinking through heartbreak because stopping would mean facing what you broke, and the person who left because being loved scared them
-
T-ara
DAY BY DAY
A K-pop ballad of post-breakup yearning where the singer counts the slow, identical days she spends missing someone who has already vanished like wind
-
HANRORO
Landing in Love
A song about reaching the point where you can finally forgive a past self, and the person who hurt you, without pretending it didn't hurt
-
Adele
I Can't Make You Love Me (Live)
A cover of Bonnie Raitt's ballad in which a woman bargains for one last night of pretend intimacy before accepting that the person beside her will never love her back