4 of the Most Scathing Country Songs About Divorce

Music is written for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s for celebrating a win in one’s life and, other times, it’s for commiserating a loss. The latter is up for discussion in the list below. Revisit these four scathing country songs about divorce.

4 of the Most Scathing Country Songs About Divorce

1. “Does My Ring Burn Your Finger?” (Lee Ann Womack)

When ending a relationship–especially one as deep as a marriage–we can be left with a lot of questions. What was the breaking point? What happened to make this unfixable? Lee Ann Womack asks those kinds of questions in her pained “Does My Ring Burn Your Finger?”

Does my ring burn your finger
Did my love weigh you down?
Was the promise too much to keep around?

2. “A Church, a Courtroom and Then Goodbye” (Patsy Cline)

Leave it to Pasty Cline to paint a visceral portrait of a marriage gone awry. Her songs are rife with vivid imagery and powerful emotion. “A Church, a Courtroom and Then Goodbye” particularly so. She charts a course through the beginning, middle, and end of a once great relationship.

The next scene was a crowded courtroom
And like strangers, we sat side by side
Then I heard the judge make his decision
And no longer were we man and wife

3. “Just Married” (Kelsea Ballerini)

Next up on our list of country songs about divorce we have a Kelsea Ballerini ballad. Her EP, Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, is chock full of great songs all centered around one life event: her divorce. She gets deeply candid on this project. Any one of those songs could find a home on this list, but we’ve chosen to highlight “Just Married.” When the love goes away, marriage really is just a piece of paper. That’s the idea she presents here.

But I wasn’t made for fixing a plate
And getting divorced sounds scary
But I’m just not strong enough to hold on
With all of the weight that I carried
Yeah, it was love
It really was
Then it was just married

[RELATED: Kelsea Ballerini Performs Emotional New Song at People’s Choice Country Awards]

4.  “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” (Tammy Wynette)

Of course, we had to include this Tammy Wynette classic on this list. Unarguably the country song about the topic, “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” is a cleverly constructed track that attempts to shield a heartbreaking reality from a child. For the adults listening, the message comes through loud and clear.

Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today
Me and little J-O-E will be goin’ away
I love you both and this will be pure H-E double L for me
Oh, I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Photo by David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images