Breakup songs are more than commonplace. Lost love tales are inescapable–and have been so for decades. Needless to say, we’re all well-versed in the conventions behind them. However, they only start making real sense after you’ve had a heartbreak of your own. Take the three tracks below for example. All three are great country songs, but to really appreciate them, you need to know what going through a breakup feels like.
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[RELATED: 4 Classic Country Songs That Inspired Covers That Will Never Beat the Originals]
“Leave Me Again” (Kelsea Ballerini)
The entirety of Kelsea Ballerini‘s Rolling Up the Welcome Mat is breakup gold. There are few country projects in recent memory that commiserate with a broken heart quite as well. If we had to pick one country song from this record that hits even harder in the wake of breakup, we’d have to choose “Leave Me Again”. In relationships we, at times, leave ourselves behind. We become forever changed by the other person. After breaking off that relationship, it can be a long journey back to ourselves. Ballerini summarizes that point well in “Leave Me Again”. While wishing her ex well, she makes sure to remember her own well being singing, Staying only made me get real good at pretend / So, I hope I never leave me again. Many of us have been there. It can be comforting to hear someone else talk about it so candidly.
“Better Man” (Little Big Town)
Most of the time, love doesn’t just run out after a breakup. Leftover feelings can cause a world of hurt. We can’t help but mull over the hopes that were dashed. Little Big Town sings about those persistent hopes in “Better Man.” Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I can feel you again / But I just miss you, and I just wish you were a better man, the chorus reads. When things don’t work out, we can’t help but nit pick facts. We find ourselves asking, “If this one thing had been different, would everything have worked out?” At the end of the day, questions like this are futile. But it won’t stop us from asking them. Luckily, we have country songs like “Better Man” whenever we want to revisit mistakes made after a breakup.
“What Hurts the Most” (Rascal Flatts)
“What Hurts the Most” was originally written as an ode from a son to a father, but it has been readily accepted as a love song. Gary LeVox sings about a painful breakup in this 2006 hit, injecting a powerful amount of emotion into his vocals. We might not all be able to express it in quite the same way, but many of us have felt similar emotions. What hurts the most / Was being so close, the titular lyrics to this song read. “What could’ve been” is a road best not travelled, but it has no trouble drawing us in from time to time. This country ballad holds the listener’s hand while they traipse down memory lane.
(Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum)
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