These were our favorite breakup songs from the ’70s: Do you agree?
The 1970s had a gift for heartbreak. And for many other aches and pains, too.
Singer-songwriters were confessing everything, and the decade’s biggest acts kept finding new ways to describe what a relationship ending felt like.
Some of these are furious, some resigned, some so quietly devastating you almost miss it until the second listen. All six belong in any honest accounting of what the decade did best.
Image credit: Amazon
“It’s Too Late” — Carole King (1971)
Carole King wrote “It’s Too Late” for Tapestry, which spent 15 consecutive weeks at No. 1 and became one of the best-selling records in history. The song itself spent five weeks at No. 1 in 1971. What makes it remarkable among breakup songs is its tone: neither angry nor heartbroken, just honest. Something has worn out between two people, and both know it. The melody says everything the lyrics decline to dramatize.
Image Credit: Bee Gees in 1976 by Caribb/ Wikimedia Commons
“How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” — Bee Gees (1971)
The Bee Gees wrote this as a genuine plea rather than a performance of grief, and that sincerity made it spend eight weeks at No. 1. Barry Gibb was just 24 when he co-wrote it. The resignation in the delivery sounds lived in despite his age. The melody carries the question the lyrics cannot answer, and the song never tries to resolve it. It simply holds the feeling open.
Image Credit: Kevin O’Sullivan / Wikimedia Commons.
“Alone Again Naturally” — Gilbert O’Sullivan (1972)
Gilbert O’Sullivan’s darkest song spent six weeks at No. 1 in 1972 and remains one of the most unflinching records of the decade. Its subject matter is unsparing: abandonment, the death of both parents, the absence of God. All of that arrives wrapped in a melody light enough to hum. It moves from personal loss to existential reckoning without ever raising its voice.
Image Credit: Amazon.com.
“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” — Paul Simon (1975)
Paul Simon crafted one of pop’s cleverest breakup songs around a snare-drum pattern that Steve Gadd adapted from a military march exercise. It spent three weeks at No. 1 in early 1976. The song presents what sounds like comic advice while burying the actual ache in the verses. Simon lets the central contradiction sit without resolving it, which is exactly what gives the song its strange staying power.
Image Credit: Wikipedia
“If You Leave Me Now” — Chicago (1976)
Chicago was known for brass-driven rock when Peter Cetera wrote this ballad, and it caught nearly everyone off guard. It spent two weeks at No. 1 in 1976 and won a Grammy. The production is so carefully controlled that it almost conceals the desperation underneath. Cetera’s vocal does the work that the arrangement is too polished to show, and the result sounds like an appeal rather than an accusation.
Image Credit: Weatherman90 / Wiki Commons.
“Go Your Own Way” — Fleetwood Mac (1977)
Fleetwood Mac recorded this while Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were ending a five-year relationship, John and Christine McVie were divorcing, and Mick Fleetwood’s marriage was falling apart. “Go Your Own Way” was the opening single from Rumours, the album the band made in the middle of that collapse. The fury in Buckingham’s guitar is not a creative decision. It is the actual emotional temperature of the room.
Image Credit: Deagreez/iStock
Wrap up
Six songs, six different emotional textures for the same experience. The 1970s did not invent heartbreak, but it produced some of the most honest records ever made about what one feels like.
Ask us! What questions do you have about content, strategy, pop culture, lifestyle, wellness, history or more? We may use your question in an upcoming article!
Related:
Like MediaFeed’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.
AlertMe
