How Music Helped Me Keep It Together After A Breakup 

When I went through my first breakup this past January, I kind of thought the world was ending. After two years and some change it all comes crashing down in one evening (or over the course of a few months if we’re counting the period in which I wasn’t really treated like a girlfriend anyway). 

To most of you, this feeling is familiar. I’m really sorry, this sucks. If it’s unfamiliar, I’m really sorry, it will suck. It’s inevitable, unless you somehow live in a Disney movie. Five months out, though, and I’m doing okay! I’ve grown a lot in that time, and while I’m definitely not an expert in breakups, I think I am an expert in one thing: playlists. 

My Spotify is an expansive array of curated taste, and over the past few months, it’s been an anchor for my feelings. If I’m feeling wistful and grief-stricken, I can put on music that fits that. If I’m feeling like I’m “The Shit” and nobody can tell me anything else, I’ve got a playlist for that, too. 

Music helps me process emotions. Lyrics reach into my brain and pull out what’s in there, whether I want them to or not. 

So, naturally, I made one for my breakup. It includes these next few songs, plus a few more that didn’t make the cut. 

1. “You’re Losing Me” – Taylor Swift 

This song physically hurts to listen to. Released as a vault track off Swift’s tenth album, Midnights, “You’re Losing Me” is the soundtrack of my life from October of 2023 to January of this year. Swift writes about a dying relationship through the metaphor of someone in a hospital on life support. Being in a relationship with someone who can’t see (or doesn’t care) that their indifference is hurting you does feel like dying slowly. 

For me, this song is a reminder that it’s not supposed to be like that. Swift really lays into the muse of this song in another track off her newest album, The Tortured Poets Department. It’s called “So Long, London,” and it picks up the medical metaphor. “I stopped CPR / after all, it’s no use / The spirit was gone / we would never come to” 

She finally learns that letting go of her love is the only solution that’s best for the both of them.

2. “New Song” – Maggie Rogers and Del Water Gap 

If the last song’s lesson was about how moving on is healthy, this one is about the denial of that. Trust me, I know it’s not healthy, but delusion is more comfortable than the truth. S. Holden Jaffe (the person behind Del Water Gap) and Rogers sing about their relationship and the mutual culpability that they feel. For me, this song is about pretending that it’s different, and that things work out. The song’s outro is both singers saying “I don’t mind it” over and over, gradually building intensity until they’re belting over each other. It becomes a mantra for the delusional parts of ourselves that can allow for people to treat us poorly. 

For me, I turn on this song when I need a moment to belt out my feelings of frustration. This song is forgiving to the muse, and I like to listen to it when I want to dissect myself and my ex in our relationship and autopsy the whole thing. 

3. “Night Shift” – Lucy Dacus 

The amount of times I’ve ugly sobbed to this song is unreal. I’m pretty sure I’ve listened to it at least 50 times on Valentine’s Day this year. 

No song has come close to capturing the anger I feel at my ex’s avoidant tendencies and how they present themselves especially after we broke up. They haven’t reached out at all after we exchanged stuff and even then, I never saw an ounce of anything but guilt. 

Dacus paints the most devastating portrait of the breakup here, and I turn to this song when I need to feel ruthless. I was hurt, badly, and the neglect that I went through is encapsulated perfectly in the lyrics. The best way I can describe this song is heartbreaking catharsis. 

4. “Too Well” – Reneé Rapp 

One of my favorites of Rapp’s, and also another entry into “bops that I’ve ugly cried to in my living room.” (“Bejeweled” from Swift is also on that list, next to “HISS” by Megan Thee Stallion herself and Sza’s “F2F” from SOS.) 

“Too Well” is a current favorite of mine because it describes that feeling you get when you know that you’re for sure TOTALLY over them and you’re never gonna let them in your life again, but you’re also stalking them on LinkedIn and downloading dating apps only to see if they’re on them. Then you realize that you’re self-sabotaging and quickly set up a therapy session for the next day. And cry yourself to sleep. 

Healing isn’t linear, and Rapp does a good job of talking about these moments we all feel during a breakup, or any type of grief, for that matter. 

5. “If Now Was Then” – Maggie Rogers 

It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t bring up Miss Margaret a second time. This is another wistful song about looking back at the past. Rogers sets up the scene perfectly: something catches your eye, and you’re taken back to a moment before you called it quits. You think to yourself that maybe had you done it differently, you would still be together. If you changed yourself more, then they’d like you back. Her new album, Don’t Forget Me, explores this theme of thrown-out speeches and finally releasing your held-back thoughts. With the backdrop of an early aughts sound with modern folk pop influence, Rogers once again captures existential questions while letting me shake ass at the same time. Perfect!

This isn’t an exhaustive list of every single breakup song that’s emotionally moving – it’s not even everything on my heartbreak playlist. But I think it’s important to not be alone when going through something like a breakup. So, dear reader, you’re not alone! Everyone has gone through heartbreak at one point in life, and maybe these five songs (plus all the ones that didn’t make the cut) can speak to some aspect of your life and make you feel understood, just like they did for me. 

Header by Sophia Johnson