My one and only breakup song is The Rolling Stones' "The Last Time" (from their "Out Of Our Heads" album - how appropriately titled, I thought to myself, several tears in several beers later.)
The events preceding the breakup are hardly important now, but when I held that heavy wedding invitation in my hand, it's like I had alighted the train at Cliche Central.
I lit a cigarette with trembling hands, wiped fat, salty tears with my shirt-sleeve and having lost the ability to breathe, I stood by the tape deck and flipped through a gazillion tapes till I found "The Last Time". I wanted the perfect song to tell the world - and myself - that we had ended as lovers. When the song started playing - Brian Jones' recurring, circular guitar riff is burned into my memory - I sat down on the edge of the bed and thought about her, and us, over and over again.
There were a lot of tears, snot too, and when I could no longer stand the funk I was in, I decided to work my depression through not liquor or drugs, but through laundry. Nothing like a dash of Surf to dull the pain.
A few dirty shirts later, I grew tired of Jagger's voice. So I stopped the music, walked out of that room and felt tremendous relief - at being able to wear a clean shirt after ages.
Even now when I hear "The Last Time", I remember not the minor tragedy, but the warm suds around my fingers, the snot running down my nose and a stiff, over-soaped cotton shirt on my back.
My breakup ruined a great rock and roll song and I am not happy about it. You can read more stories of ruined breakup music here. (Link via Yahoo Picks)
7 comments:
umm, how many break-ups did you have?
Heh heh. Its not so much *the* breakup song that I remember with a tinge of regret, but bands/albums I was listening to *during* the failed adventure. The list includes some heavyweights - Floyd (DSOT, in particular - not 'M', which thankfully, remains unsullied), Dan (Aja = lots of heartbreak), Tull (SOTW, especially), Straits (Alchemy), and ironically, Bad Company (Bad Company).
More and more, I wish I could do a disk cleanup up there.
Also, before you ask, no correlation between number of albums listed and number of breakups. Hee hee.
Baaaaaaaad Company!
Alok, it's a single-digit number greater than 1 and less than 3 :D
VB: DSOT! Is there anyone who doesn't have a breakup story attached with that album? :) (And yes, your ironical selection is very ironic indeed. Please feel free to confess on your blog anytime :D)
hilarious!
also ironic: in my mind, 'the last time' is paired with 'mother's little helper' :-|
Hate it when something spoils a good song for me :-)
No break-up songs for me but PLENTY that I associate with people. The funniest has to be the one I associate with this old college friend, who called a minute ago. Everytime he was asked to sing a song, for some strange and, I think, inexplicable reason(s) he would start singing Barbara Striesand's Woman in Love. And, I might add, he sang with emotion!!
TR: Oedipus ROCKS? :)
Ghost: I knew this guy in Bombay who liked pumping iron to "I'm every woman". I think we should introduce our two friends to each other.
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