The Guide to Breaking Up Part II: Playlist Edition

“Oops, I did it again”… see what I did there? That’s a song. Anyway I took another tour through break-up city a couple of months ago, so I thought I would use this as a “teachable moment” to let you all in on my secrets for getting through these difficult periods with grace and aplomb. This time we’ll pay special attention to crafting the perfect break-up playlist, because how else will you really hit those emotional peaks and valleys?

The first track you’ll want to put on is Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness”. Summer is gone, so is your relationship… “Kiss me hard before you go.” It’s appropriately melancholy, but you’re not going to lose your shit. Right? Yeah, definitely not going to lose your shit.

Let’s move from nostalgic “tone” to genuine nostalgia, shall we? I recommend “Slide” by the Goo Goo Dolls. It’s got a sweet forbidden love tale at its core that might just make you feel like a kid again. Maybe it will bring you back to the first time you got your heart broken, circa 1999. This will inevitably force you to reflect on all the subsequent times your heart has been broken, which will hopefully make you feel resilient… and not just tired and used.

While we’re still in the pop music phase of the playlist, we might as well go deep and throw on “Wrecking Ball”. Maybe you don’t mean to listen to it. Maybe it just came on the radio while you were moving your car. Maybe you left it on ironically. Maybe now you’re crying so hard you can’t even sing along. Ah, the power of music.

I recommend creating your own at-home mash-up by playing Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” at the same time as “Wrecking Ball”. I’m pretty sure they’re in the same key, try to line up the choruses for maximum catharsis. Careful, your heart might explode.

Let’s try to bring the mood up a bit, shall we? Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” will remind you of all the fun you can have now that you’re single! Do it! Be up all night! Get lucky! Ha ha! Oh my God, we’re having so… much… fun….

I’ll let this next part be a free-style section. Try to choose some music that will really remind you of your ex. Stuff that you listened to together. Maybe that song that you talked about on your first date… like the classic that has been sung by so many people but personally your favorite version is… wait, that’s your favorite version too? Oh my God. We have so much in common. Yeah. Put that one on the list.

Make this next one more about your ex and less about the two of you together. Maybe he played in punk bands in the early 2000’s. Maybe you need to throw on a track by that other band that he went on tour with but DEFINITELY NOT HIS BAND. That would be creepy....

To pull us out of this rabbit hole, let’s throw in a few things that show how void we can be emotionally. Something super loud or droney that will numb our eardrums and our hearts. I’m a fan of “Gone Completely” by Disappears. Because the lyric “Do you ever think about what if we had never met…” (or whatever the fuck he’s saying, I don’t know) is definitely not emotionally loaded and could never become a mantra to your love-thrashed soul. Certainly not.

You know what, it’s time to move on. You’ve wallowed long enough. You’ve had your desperate revenge fuck while listening to James Blake “Retrograde”. You’ve flirted with strangers in bars to the dulcet tones of Sam Cooke, only to realize that you could never spend time with these people under ordinary auditory circumstances. Let’s do it. Let’s find someone to hang with.

So you’re sitting on your couch with the potential casual hook-up who can distract you until you’re back on the boyfriend train. How do you convince him you’re cool without actually having to say anything? Because Lord knows, talking will not make you sound cool….

Try the new Blood Orange album. It’s pretty sexy. Be sure to mention that it’s the “new” Blood Orange album, so he knows how “with it” you are.

Perhaps The Limiñanas—they have a timeless sound and also sing in French. Pretend you understand the lyrics. Speaking other languages is always cool.

Or maybe put on that Haim album “Falling”. It’s not particularly great make-out music, but it’s so exuberant it will make it seem like you couldn’t possibly have experienced a break-up recently. In fact probably nothing bad has ever happened to you or anyone ever! Wheee!

So you did it. He’s cool. You’re cool. You hook up. It’s cool. He leaves. You go down the spiral.

Ah the spiral. For this, might I recommend listening to Steve Reich’s “Piano Phase”. On repeat. For hours. Maybe a whole day. Maybe a week.

When you’re pretty sure that your brain has been reduced to nothing but a twitching thinking machine and that there will be no more of the feelings ever, you can try to reintroduce emotions little by little, like solid foods. A nice transitional option might be “Computer Love” by Kraftwerk. You will feel, but only as a robot who wishes so badly to be human can feel.

I’ll leave the last track up to you again. Maybe there’s some song out there that you really like, that you’ve always really liked. A song that doesn’t remind you of anyone in particular, just something that speaks to you.

For me, it would probably be The New Radicals-- “You Get What You Give.”