Sometimes you just need to hear a good break-up song.
A good break-up song doesn’t require the listener to being going through a break-up of their own; the memory of a break-up will do just fine.
In fact, I’d argue that a really good break-up song – like “Manhattan” by Sara Bareilles – doesn’t require any specific relationship experience, because at heart a break-up song is less about the end of a relationship and more about basic human stuff like change, acceptance, loss, and nostalgia.
“Manhattan” could provide comfort to a student starting university this fall, missing the comforts of home. Or to that same student’s middle-aged parent as they notice that the house is emptier than they’re comfortable with.
It works because Bareilles tells the story she wants to tell without saturating the story with details about the characters or the events that led up to the moment of loss. Instead, she just takes the emotion and lays it down gently, blanket-like, over top of the music.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. Although the song is connected to a real break-up in her life, she apparently wrote it from her ex’s point of view, when she left for New York to pursue her career, leaving him behind on the west coast.
2. The soft horn section between each verse. I can’t decide whether they sound mournful or victorious.
3. The first line of each chorus is so reminiscent of the old Rodgers and Hart standard “Manhattan,” made famous by Ella Fitzgerald, that it can’t be a coincidence. That song is about a new couple basking in the glory of New York in the early 1900s, while Bareilles’ character accepts the fact that their time in Manhattan together is done.
Recommended listening activity:
Trying to remember what it felt like to hold hands with them.