Objective Breakup Songs

Carole King - "It's Too Late"

What others?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ICv9YgUHqo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY

Colin Blunstone - "Caroline Goodbye"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZfsrkQkWGA

hi

The Kinks - "Days"

Whodini - "One Love"

By objective, you mean analytical rather than weepy or accusatory? Tom Rush's "No Regrets" is as definitive as "It's Too Late."

Dave Mason's "We Just Disagree" and, except for the part about wasting his precious time, Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."

"We Just Disagree" was the first song I thought of too.

that Everything But The Girl album qualifies almost in its entirety.

Beulah's "Landslide Baby" a breakup song written from the singer's xgf's POV, very effective following up "A Man Like Me" on the album.

Ryan Adams' "Fix It"

Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye", which like "It's Too Late", puts in an incredibly warm sentiment for someone he's about to initiate a breakup with ("you gave me more to live for, more than you'll ever know"). "It's Too Late" has "still I'm glad for what we had, and how I once loved you". I always like people who can do this IRL.

Last place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEg_r_T00-s&feature=fvst

my world is empty without you, babe
my world is empty without you
if the time is right, my love just might set your world afire
but that ain't the truth
no, that ain't the truth

my world is empty without you
my world is empty without you
my world is empty without you
but that ain't the truth

every song on the Go-Betweens' 16 Lovers Lane, particularly "Clouds," "I'm Allright," and "Love Goes On!"

Is a Getting Dumped Gracefully song ("I'll Be There", "I'll Be Around", etc.) the equivalent to an Objective Break-up Song?

Ani DiFranco, "Hour Follows Hour":

hour follows hour
like water follows water
everything is governed by the rule
of one thing leads to another
you can't really place blame
cuz blame is much to messy
some was bound to get on you
while you were tryin to put it on me
and don't fool yourself
into thinking things are simple
nobody's lying still the stories don't line up
why do you try to hold on
to what you'll never get a hold on
you wouldn't try to put the ocean
in a paper cup
cuz i have had something to prove
as long as i know there's something
that needs improvment
and you know that every time i move
i make a woman's movement
and first you decide what you've gotta do
then you go out and do it
and maybe the most that we can do
is just to see each other through it
hour follows hour like water in a river
and from one to the next
we don't know what each hour will deliver
we just call it like we see it
call it out loud as we can
and then afterwards we call it all water over the dam
maybe the moral higher ground
ain't as high as it seems
maybe we are both good people
who've done some bad things
i just hope it was okay
i know it wasn't perfect
i hope in the end we can laugh
and say it was all worth it
cuz i have had something to prove
as long as i know there's something
that needs improvement
and you know that everytime i move
i make a woman's movement
and first you decide what you've gotta do
then you go out and do it
and maybe the most that we can do
is just to see each other through it
we make our own gravity to give weight to things
then things fall and they break and gravity sings
we can only hold so much is what i figure
try and keep our eye on the big picture
picture keeps getting bigger
and too much is how i love you
but too well is how i know you
and i've got nothing to prove this time
just something to show you
i guess i just wanted you to see
that it was all worth it to me

Journey - I'll Be Alright Without You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a9O_jm8YA4&fmt=18

people are people and sometimes we change our minds

SCENES FROM AN ITALIAN RESTAURANT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99P8KfZ2kmE

By objective, you mean analytical rather than weepy or accusatory?

Yes, I think so.

Knowing Me Knowing You is kind of the classic of this category, no?

The Reels - I Don't Love You Anymore?

Afghan Whigs - What Jail Is Like, lol

The Tom Rush and Ani diFranco songs are what I'm looking for, thanks.

ABBA too.

Hope you're not in the midst of an objective breakup.

"She's Leaving", OMD

"One Less Set of Footsteps", Jim Croce

Wire--I Should Have Known Better

The Eagles-Already Gone

Tame Impala's "It Is Not Meant To Be", kinda

Hope you're not in the midst of an objective breakup.

Not in the midst, no, which makes it easier to start being objective.

This pretty much owns the thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4qY22rR9tQ

Oops didn't remember the "Better call the calling off off" part. It's still a breakup song though, even if they decide to get back together ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2w4-iQcFuI

The Yardbirds - Knowing That I'm Losing You

and yes, this predates (and walks all over) the similar Led Zep tune, and is a stellar OBS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPh1r32TCMY

also:
Joy Division - "Love Will Tear Us Apart"
Bright Eyes feat. Emmylou Harris - "Landlocked Blues"
Chicago (!) - "Call On Me"
Feist - Let It Die
Rilo Kiley - "More Adventurous" ("with every broken heart we should become more adventurous"), and, well, "Breakin' Up"
The Byrds - "The World Turns All Around Her"

Oh and I know nobody here likes this band, but this is a great song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neXaFUmiV3g

I once knew a girl in the years of my youth
with eyes like the summer, all beauty and truth
but in the morning I fled, left a note and it read
"someday you will be loved"

I cannot pretend that I felt any regret
because each broken heart will eventually mend
and as the blood runs red down the needle and thread
someday you will be loved

you'll be loved, you'll be loved, like you never have known
and the memories of me will seem more like bad dreams
just a series of blurs like I never occurred
someday you will be loved

you may feel alone when you're falling asleep
and every time tears roll down your cheek
but I know your heart belongs to someone you've yet to meet
and someday you will be loved

you'll be loved, you'll be loved, like you never have known
and the memories of me will seem more like bad dreams
just a series of blurs like I never occurred
someday you will be loved

Yeah, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is an obvious but good one.

I actually didn't know that unreleased Yardbirds tune! Listening now, it just sounds like a demo for "Tangerine" to me. Maybe I need to give it some more listens.

That was from their very last recording session, one of five new songs that may have been intended for a new album that never got made before the band broke up. The other four new songs were included on Cumular Limit released about 10 years ago, and "Knowing That I'm Losing You" was slated for inclusion too but apparently Jimmy Page threatened legal action and it was removed just before it was issued, but not before a few early demo copies slipped out. Keith Relf wrote the lyrics, including the "measuring a summer's day" verse that was the only lyric retained for "Tangerine", but wasn't given a songwriting credit. (Cumular Limit also includes a live take of "Dazed and Confused" which Page probably didn't want released either, but since the song was (properly) credited to Jake Holmes he couldn't wield any legal power to get that one removed).

Keep 'em comin'!

I could use a playlist full of these right about now

The Billy Currington and Death Cab songs are not exactly what I'm looking for. Tbh, they seem more callous than objective/analytical to me. "Love Will Tear Us Apart", on the other hand, is completely OTM.

(Thanks for the Yardbirds info btw! I've heard a Yardbirds version of "Dazed and Confused". Maybe it's the one you're referring to.)

Feist is harsh but very apt.

how is the billy currington song even remotely callous

Yeah, you're right. "Callous" was the wrong word. I'll try to sort out what I was thinking.

(Thanks for the Yardbirds info btw! I've heard a Yardbirds version of "Dazed and Confused". Maybe it's the one you're referring to.)

ah....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYDhx_DgDxE

"Dazed and Confused", here still with the original lyrics intact, a breakup song but not an objective breakup song.

and the original version of the song, that so blew Page & Co. away when he opened a New York show for the Yardbirds in early 1967 that they bought this album the next day so they could learn to play it themselves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTsvs-pAGDc

"Love Will Tear Us Apart", on the other hand, is completely OTM

yeah that was the second song I thought of here, after "We Just Disagree" whose equanimity is unsurpassed amongst breakup songs.

how is the billy currington song even remotely callous

or the Death Cab song? "Callous" means "insensitive; indifferent; unsympathetic"; I hear the opposite of all of those in the lyrics

Yeah, you're right. "Callous" was the wrong word. I'll try to sort out what I was thinking.

oops, that's why it's good to read the entire thread before posting....

So those songs are objective breakup songs and completely right for the thread, then. I guess that in my head, I was thinking of songs that are more analytical about the relationship and breakup than those ones seem to be to me.

I know Jake Holmes' "Dazed and Confused" really well. I might prefer it to the Led Zeppelin version, which is saying something. That Yardbirds version is really good.

That entire JH album is spectacular, btw

Something off Joni Mitchell's Blue, not sure which song fits best ("A Case of You"? Almost, but not quite). Likewise Dylan's Blood On The Tracks. "Tangled Up In Blue"?

The Good Life's Album of the Year is filled with these, but "Inmates" is the most obvious example. It's essentially a nine-minute rebuttal to every breakup song Tim Kasher has ever written.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYT8XUKO-58

Would Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" work?

nothing objective about "call your girlfriend" that song is just robyn enacting a sexy agenda

So those songs are objective breakup songs and completely right for the thread, then. I guess that in my head, I was thinking of songs that are more analytical about the relationship and breakup than those ones seem to be to me.

they'd sound more analytical if ian curtis were singing them like a robot

I think Boz Scaggs' "We're All Alone" might qualify.

Maybe not...how about Gladys Knight and the Pips' "Neither One of Us"?

Joe Jackson's "Breaking Us In Two"

Stevie Wonder, "It Ain't No Use"

they'd sound more analytical if ian curtis were singing them like a robot

Ha, maybe.

speaking of joni... "i had a king" is perfect for this thread i think

http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=LcGvR1OumjM&gl=US

ouch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=LcGvR1OumjM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tigVYfHVmQ&ob=av2e

yeah it's about a car, but an ex dedicated this one to me, and it stuck. Especially the stormy weather line, since we ran together during the Great Flood of '93.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR47-4UoLPg

God, Johnny Lang. That guy's gotta be 28 by now, amirite?

hahaha, holy shit. He's 31.

Prefab Sprout - "When Love Breaks Down"
Nick Drake - "Place To Be"
Harry Nilsson - "Together"
Ambrosia - "How Much I Feel" (yacht-rock classic!)
Fleetwood Mac - "Silver Springs"
Bonnie Raitt - "I Can't Make You Love Me"