November 16, 2011 • 20 mins
Almost everyone has a breakup song -- but why? In this episode, Cristen and Caroline explain how we process emotional rejection as physical pain and why music has an analgesic effect. Tune in to learn more (including which breakup songs may be the best).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from housetop works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristin. Kristin, you and Molly a while back
talked about your brain on a breakup and how all
the wonky things that happened to you and that the
pain you feel is it's all on your on your mind.
(00:26):
Oh yeah, man, But because it hurts so much and
your brain is telling you that you're hurting, it can
actually kind of feel like you are physically hurting. Yeah.
Breakups are really hard on the brain. They are a
poor brain, and that's why we feel so bad. Because um,
emotional rejection actually stimulates similar pathways in our brain as
(00:47):
as physical pain. Right, that's why heartache that's a real thing. Heartache,
I know, it's really like it becomes body ache and
tummy ache when you eat too much ice cream. Yeah,
and um. Evolutionary biologists would probably chalk this up to
our body's way of making sure that we, as a
mammalian species avoid social isolation, saying, hey, you know what,
(01:11):
they d incentivizes our being alone so that we will
reproduce at some point. Yeah, yeah, we we become lonely
so that we will go hang out with other people.
But still, man, I know, not easy. Well, so today
we're going to talk about something completely related, very similar.
We're going to talk about breakup songs and what they
(01:32):
do to your brain. Right. I think that probably everyone
out there can relate to the soothing effect of a
breakup song, or not necessarily soothing but just cathartic um.
Or they can be empowering. Sometimes they can have a
lot of different impacts. And I think this topic is
(01:53):
especially relevant for the listener who wrote in recently saying,
you know, I'm going through a really tough break cup
and you guys explained to me how the brain works
and all of these neurological things are happening in my brain.
But I need more than this the pain go by.
So brother, this one's for you, exactly. You should You
should turn on the radio. Turn on the radio, or
(02:15):
you could turn to my first breakup album What is It?
It was so high school angsty uh, and I may
or may not have returned to it since then. Elliott
Smith's XO was just I mean, I played that thing
to death and junior year of high school and I
(02:35):
have played some of that since it's a yeah it's sad,
you can't go back to some of that music. I know. Well,
it's like if I if I listen to XO now,
it kind of provokes a little bit of worry in
my head of like where are you are you doing? Okay?
Are you doing okaid? Are you doing in? Let's change channel? Right. Well,
music has very strong effects on its whether whether it
(02:57):
is sad breakup music or or or you know, pop
or whatever. Music actually stimulates the release of dopamine. So
when you're going through a tough time a breakup or whatever,
and you listen to a sad song or one that
that's talking about like oh I hate you called you
broke off, feedings up um, because yeah, that's what I
(03:20):
would write dream and half. I'm also apparently a member
of nickel Back Um. But anyway, you you have these
strong feelings about music because your brain reacts positively to it.
It's sort of music can act, can sort of be
a Catharsis for you. It's the same thing that you
(03:42):
experience when you have a more tangible um experience like
with sex, food, or drugs. Those those are actual things
that can affect your body whereas music is just like
up in the ether. Yeah, and it's not just the
magic of Chad Kroger of nic Magical mach Uh. But
in fact, studies have confirmed that music has an analgesic
(04:08):
effect on physical pain. And there were two studies that
were linked to in a Scientific American blog post that
was published recently UM, one of which demonstrating the pain
mitigating effects of cold compresses, in one of hot compresses,
I don't know which study I would rather participate in,
(04:29):
d of dealing with freezing Probably cold? Yeah, probably cold?
Would you rather free stuff or yeah? Well no, but
I mean if you're listening to me that the whole
point is that if you're listening to music, your perception
of pain is reduced and you'd probably just want to
live forever. Yep, yeah, what she just said. So in
the studying music is an analgesic for physical pain. Emotional
(04:51):
veilance contributes to loud music induced analgesia from the University
of Montreal. Essentially, it's own that a listening to pleasant
music helped study participants deal with hot compress thermal pain
as it's referred to UM. Even the anticipation of listening
(05:15):
to music that you like can contribute to this effect.
You can you have a release of dopamine if you
just think I'm about to listen to you know whatever,
whatever you like, I'm not gonna just since you've been
Gone by Kelly Clarkson, a favorite breakup anthem of yeah,
it's form an empowering one. I thought this was interesting too.
(05:37):
There was a study that was testing pain soothing um
from cold compresses and the effects of music on that
and it found that when listeners when or when the
study participants were listening to uh musical piece of their
choosing that they listened to in everyday life, and they
(05:58):
knew the lyrics to especially like Basically, the more familiar
they were with a song and the more that they
liked this song, the more it suited soothed that pain,
which is probably why I don't know about you, Caroline,
but a lot of times will return to the same
breakup anthems like I love um Gone by Ben Folds. Yeah,
(06:22):
that's such a good one, like that piano and there. So,
now that we know that music can can lower these
this physical pain, let's talk a little bit about what
is going on more specifically in the brain. Like how
how those musical notes have that kind of power? And
this is coming from a book by Daniel J. Levinton,
(06:44):
who was a neuroscientist, audio engineer, and production consultant for
Steely Dan and he wrote, this is your brain on music,
and the process is is pretty simple. The musical notes
coming through your ear, it is processed in your cerebellum,
which is full of dopamine receptors, and then uh, it
(07:06):
activates your mesolymbic system, which meso olympic system is the
brain's seat of pleasure and dopamine production. So we get
a little bit of a reward from songs that we
really like. Um. According to an article on Everyday Health
sort of um talking about these these effects that music
(07:26):
can have on you. Um, there's music therapy, which is
a whole field. There are accredited music therapy programs. You
can be a music therapist. Um. But they did studies
and patients of music therapists have been found to require
actually less pain medication and have more improvements in their respiration,
blood pressure, heart rate, and muscle relaxation. So I mean
(07:48):
it's no wonder after you go through some sort of
traumatic experience that you might just want to kind of
zone out from the world for a little while and
put your headphones on and listen to some Kelly Clark
cent or whatever, or some some Elliott Smith and that
Scientific American UM blog post where we found those links
to the um the initial studies that we talked about.
The author also discusses the comfort that she found in
(08:12):
not only listening to break up songs, but even making
breakup songs, writing out the lyrics, playing her guitar right. UM.
Self expression can definitely help after a traumatic experience, and
six study in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology found that
students who wrote about traumatic events they had experienced ended
up having fewer visits to the health center six months
(08:35):
after writing, in comparison with those who just wrote about
something trivial. In the moment, their blood pressure went up
because I mean, that makes sense, you're reliving what happened
to you. But after the fact, you know, you're calmer,
you've gotten it out. Maybe you've worked out some things
in your head and you've gotten it down on paper,
so it's sort of like you've gotten rid of it.
It's out there in the world. UM. What's interesting is
(08:58):
that this effect is actually amplified when you share your
writing with other people. So you write about your traumatic experience,
it helps you. You write about your traumatic experience, and
then you share it with people and you you read
what you wrote, or you just relay the story to people,
it helps even more, which is why I am such
(09:19):
a complainer a lot people. I'm trying to do is
stay healthy. It makes complete sense to me that sharing
that kind of writing would would be so psychologically soothing
for us, because we're mourning the loss of a very
personal and close connection with someone else, and it's a
connection that you feel in that moment when it's the worst,
(09:39):
you feel like you're never going to find with anybody else,
and there is really no exciting reason to wake up
in the morning because you are by yourself among a
sea of you know, acquaintances and who cares. Yeah, I'm
just gonna start to cry now. But by listening to
(10:00):
breakup songs perhaps and writing that and communicating the emotions,
it rebuilds that kind of emotional connection that you are mourning.
Um For instance, there was an essay that we found
about the psychology of breakup songs and talks about how
it woos us into a calmer mental state by co
(10:24):
regulating our affect and recreating the affective connection like a
mother soothing her infant. Interesting. I mean, it's basically we
want to be because we want to be comforted. And
it's hard during breakups because typically the person that we
would initially run to for comfort if something external happened
to us, that we had a bad day at work
or a fight with our best friend, they would be
(10:44):
the person that was incorrect grammar. He or she would
be the person that we would that we would run
to and write. And eventually your friends are going to
get sick of listening to so yeah, you probably should
just listen to music. So you might want to set
up a playlist on iTunes, right, Um, And you know,
along the lines of what you were just saying, Stephen
Brown from Carolinska Institute said that music is a powerful
(11:06):
device for promoting a group identity, cognition, coordination, and catharsis.
Like we said earlier, it kind of draws you back
to other people. Um. You know, music didn't start necessarily
as a solitary activity. Back when we were cave men
and women, you know, we were we were hanging out,
banging the drums together, right. Um. And there's an essay
(11:27):
that I found about breakup songs written by tal from
Talent to Get Downstay Down, and she's talking about the
pleasure break up up songs. And I really liked her
perspective because she's writing from the perspective of of being
a musician. And um, she says that the best breakup
songs tap into thousands of years of the romantic tradition,
the questioning, the regret, the disappointment, and then the moaning,
(11:52):
and it kind of keeps you rooted in the heartache
for a little while because you want to wallow from
me and breakup songs. How to give you that space? Well,
you should wallow, Yeah, wallowing. If you're not wallowing, okay,
maybe eventually wallowing is is too much and you should
just try to get that. But you know, I mean,
(12:12):
if you don't deal with it, you're just gonna have
I mean, it's gonna come do at some point. I mean,
we all I told my stories in the Rebound episode. Okay, yeah,
you have to deal with your heartache. And and so
listening to this music, hearing what other people have gone through,
and you feel like someone else is putting words and
and a melody to your feelings. You know it can
(12:33):
be helpful, absolutely, and as far as people who aren't
yet feeling better. A two thousand four German study looked
at what kind of love songs men and women chose
to listen to in the context of their romantic situations,
and as you might expect, romantically frustrated men listen to
love lamenting music longer than did more content men, and
(12:54):
the same was true for romantically disenchanted women versus the
hopeful ones. But something that I found was a little interesting,
and it kind of kind of made me think about
what music I listened to when I'm in a happy relationship.
Women and happy relationships exhibited an unexpectedly strong preference for
music denouncing love. Really, I don't know, I don't know
what that's about. So you're in a good real you're
(13:17):
saying you're in a content relationship and but you're but
you're kind of musically steering clear of it. Mustang maybe
you're avoiding attachment or something. But I'm just by you,
I mean just she means the general you. Participants that is,
that's fascinating. Well, why don't we offer some um, some
of the top rated breakup songs. Let's do it among
(13:38):
some different genres to get the conversation started, because listeners,
you're probably gonna guess the question I'm asking to ask
right now, which is what are your go to breakup songs?
Because they're also the different kind of categories of the
breakup song. There's a really sad and mournful breakup song,
and then there's more bitter, don't like Don't Think Twice
(14:00):
It's All Right by Bob Dylan, which is also a
go to of mine, and then we have the awesome
lady empowerment songs such as Destiny's Child, survivor Kelly Clarkson.
We've already mentioned um Oh Cielos a song which is
screw You. I think in radio PC terms, yeah, I
think it's forget you, Forget you, That's what it is.
(14:24):
Um Oh, the classic Alanis Morissett. You ought to know
that Dave Coolier really screwed her. We did a number
Gloria Gainers, I Will Survive. And for the more more
indie rock um listeners out there, We've got a list
from NPRS all songs considered, and they recommend the district
(14:45):
sleeps Alone Tonight by the Postal Service, parting Gift by
Fiona Apple, No Children by the Mountain Goats. Oh yeah,
I love that song. Oh yeah, I do. I love
that song. And if you're in a little bit more
of a mood to laugh and cry or cry laugh
as we like to do sometimes here on Mom Mom stuff,
(15:06):
there's always I'm Not Crying by Fly of the Concords,
which was on more than one breakup songs list that
I ran across, so it resonates with a lot of
people apparently. But yeah, let us know your favorite breakup
songs and really what resonates with you, because yeah, like
I said, my my go to was always Elliott's Smiths XO,
(15:26):
although I did go through a Forget You phase at
some point. It's a good one to run to if
you want a double like an empowerment combo, go running
while listening to Celo's Forget You. I love that whole album.
Yeah that's great. Well, I know this is slightly off topic,
but I also want to know about music that you
can't listen to anymore because either you listen to it
(15:49):
during a breakup or you listen to it during a
relationship and then that guy broke your heart and like
I it took me forever to be able to listen
to Mates of State again. Some se left it. Oh yeah,
because I was listening to it while we were so happy,
and then the next thing, I know, like we're not
so happy, and then I just yeah, every time I
listen to that album, because music can cause such strong
(16:11):
uh feelings, You can have such a strong connection between
music and an event. Um, Yeah, I just it brought
up all sorts of bad memories and whatever. Yeah. I
had an experience like that with the album Minds from Phenomena,
and yeah, I think about it sometimes and have to
sort of avoid that album. But it only speaks again
(16:32):
to that visceral reaction that that music can elicit from
our our SaraBellum, in our Mesolympic system. Now I can
have that word exactly. So on that note, send us
to songs, folks, or post them over at at Facebook. Um,
I'd like to get a nice mom stuff breakup playlist
(16:53):
ready for it together. Yeah. Uh So in the meantime,
let's read a cup of emails. I have one here
from John in response to our episode on romance novels.
He said, I have been waiting ever since I first
started listening to your podcast for an episode on romance novels.
(17:15):
Thank you in all caps, I'm a heterosexual male who
just so happens to enjoy reading romance novels. Um. I
like the romance novels that have the fully fledged female
characters that are intelligent, have their own views, and not
just some meek little thing that cowers and waits for
someone to come save them. I guess I prefer that
(17:35):
to the female characters who you described as static hollo shells,
because I'm a male and generally don't have the same
thought processes, and it's kind of boring if the female
is just a wet dish rag all the time. I know.
I think my favorite romance novel would be the Paranormal
Romance Twist by Colby Hodge. Involves time travel to a
future where vampires have pretty much taken over and you
(17:58):
live by the samurai store. Well interesting combination. Yes, this
one is from Danielle. She says, my two sisters and
I enjoy romance novels and have talked about the most
common themes we've noticed in the books and thought there
should be a study down of how many couples use
a condom but still end up pregnant. Because the fail
rate in these books tends to be staggeringly high, but
(18:20):
we enjoy them. We have sort of made it a
game to find the most ridiculous romance romance titles, which
usually falls under Harlequin, and I thought I would share
these with you. Be aware these are actual book titles.
Here we go, Oh my goodness, all right, willingly betted,
forcibly wedded, innocent wife, baby of shame, pregnant by the
(18:43):
boss exclamation point, the Millionaires, inexperienced love slave millionaire and
the pregnant paper and our favorite rancher and the amnesiac bride.
Hope these made you laugh as much as they did
for us. And who keeps the podcast coming? Thank you
ranch Your ambiac Brad might be that's the most specific title.
(19:05):
You know exactly what you're getting into it. That one.
I just love the unnecessary use of an exclamation point.
Pregnant by the blass I've been amnes is a pretty
common condition in romance novels too, Yeah, anything like soaps. Well,
thank you everyone who's written in about romance novels and
so much more, and thank you in advance for your
your breakup song stories. Again. Our email address is mom
(19:27):
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hit us up on Facebook as well and follow follow
us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast, and you can
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blog It's stuff Mom Never told You from how stuff
works dot com. Be sure to check out our new
(19:49):
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of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride.
Download it today on iTunes.
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from housetop works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristin. Kristin, you and Molly a while back
talked about your brain on a breakup and how all
the wonky things that happened to you and that the
pain you feel is it's all on your on your mind.
(00:26):
Oh yeah, man, But because it hurts so much and
your brain is telling you that you're hurting, it can
actually kind of feel like you are physically hurting. Yeah.
Breakups are really hard on the brain. They are a
poor brain, and that's why we feel so bad. Because um,
emotional rejection actually stimulates similar pathways in our brain as
(00:47):
as physical pain. Right, that's why heartache that's a real thing. Heartache,
I know, it's really like it becomes body ache and
tummy ache when you eat too much ice cream. Yeah,
and um. Evolutionary biologists would probably chalk this up to
our body's way of making sure that we, as a
mammalian species avoid social isolation, saying, hey, you know what,
(01:11):
they d incentivizes our being alone so that we will
reproduce at some point. Yeah, yeah, we we become lonely
so that we will go hang out with other people.
But still, man, I know, not easy. Well, so today
we're going to talk about something completely related, very similar.
We're going to talk about breakup songs and what they
(01:32):
do to your brain. Right. I think that probably everyone
out there can relate to the soothing effect of a
breakup song, or not necessarily soothing but just cathartic um.
Or they can be empowering. Sometimes they can have a
lot of different impacts. And I think this topic is
(01:53):
especially relevant for the listener who wrote in recently saying,
you know, I'm going through a really tough break cup
and you guys explained to me how the brain works
and all of these neurological things are happening in my brain.
But I need more than this the pain go by.
So brother, this one's for you, exactly. You should You
should turn on the radio. Turn on the radio, or
(02:15):
you could turn to my first breakup album What is It?
It was so high school angsty uh, and I may
or may not have returned to it since then. Elliott
Smith's XO was just I mean, I played that thing
to death and junior year of high school and I
(02:35):
have played some of that since it's a yeah it's sad,
you can't go back to some of that music. I know. Well,
it's like if I if I listen to XO now,
it kind of provokes a little bit of worry in
my head of like where are you are you doing? Okay?
Are you doing okaid? Are you doing in? Let's change channel? Right. Well,
music has very strong effects on its whether whether it
(02:57):
is sad breakup music or or or you know, pop
or whatever. Music actually stimulates the release of dopamine. So
when you're going through a tough time a breakup or whatever,
and you listen to a sad song or one that
that's talking about like oh I hate you called you
broke off, feedings up um, because yeah, that's what I
(03:20):
would write dream and half. I'm also apparently a member
of nickel Back Um. But anyway, you you have these
strong feelings about music because your brain reacts positively to it.
It's sort of music can act, can sort of be
a Catharsis for you. It's the same thing that you
(03:42):
experience when you have a more tangible um experience like
with sex, food, or drugs. Those those are actual things
that can affect your body whereas music is just like
up in the ether. Yeah, and it's not just the
magic of Chad Kroger of nic Magical mach Uh. But
in fact, studies have confirmed that music has an analgesic
(04:08):
effect on physical pain. And there were two studies that
were linked to in a Scientific American blog post that
was published recently UM, one of which demonstrating the pain
mitigating effects of cold compresses, in one of hot compresses,
I don't know which study I would rather participate in,
(04:29):
d of dealing with freezing Probably cold? Yeah, probably cold?
Would you rather free stuff or yeah? Well no, but
I mean if you're listening to me that the whole
point is that if you're listening to music, your perception
of pain is reduced and you'd probably just want to
live forever. Yep, yeah, what she just said. So in
the studying music is an analgesic for physical pain. Emotional
(04:51):
veilance contributes to loud music induced analgesia from the University
of Montreal. Essentially, it's own that a listening to pleasant
music helped study participants deal with hot compress thermal pain
as it's referred to UM. Even the anticipation of listening
(05:15):
to music that you like can contribute to this effect.
You can you have a release of dopamine if you
just think I'm about to listen to you know whatever,
whatever you like, I'm not gonna just since you've been
Gone by Kelly Clarkson, a favorite breakup anthem of yeah,
it's form an empowering one. I thought this was interesting too.
(05:37):
There was a study that was testing pain soothing um
from cold compresses and the effects of music on that
and it found that when listeners when or when the
study participants were listening to uh musical piece of their
choosing that they listened to in everyday life, and they
(05:58):
knew the lyrics to especially like Basically, the more familiar
they were with a song and the more that they
liked this song, the more it suited soothed that pain,
which is probably why I don't know about you, Caroline,
but a lot of times will return to the same
breakup anthems like I love um Gone by Ben Folds. Yeah,
(06:22):
that's such a good one, like that piano and there. So,
now that we know that music can can lower these
this physical pain, let's talk a little bit about what
is going on more specifically in the brain. Like how
how those musical notes have that kind of power? And
this is coming from a book by Daniel J. Levinton,
(06:44):
who was a neuroscientist, audio engineer, and production consultant for
Steely Dan and he wrote, this is your brain on music,
and the process is is pretty simple. The musical notes
coming through your ear, it is processed in your cerebellum,
which is full of dopamine receptors, and then uh, it
(07:06):
activates your mesolymbic system, which meso olympic system is the
brain's seat of pleasure and dopamine production. So we get
a little bit of a reward from songs that we
really like. Um. According to an article on Everyday Health
sort of um talking about these these effects that music
(07:26):
can have on you. Um, there's music therapy, which is
a whole field. There are accredited music therapy programs. You
can be a music therapist. Um. But they did studies
and patients of music therapists have been found to require
actually less pain medication and have more improvements in their respiration,
blood pressure, heart rate, and muscle relaxation. So I mean
(07:48):
it's no wonder after you go through some sort of
traumatic experience that you might just want to kind of
zone out from the world for a little while and
put your headphones on and listen to some Kelly Clark
cent or whatever, or some some Elliott Smith and that
Scientific American UM blog post where we found those links
to the um the initial studies that we talked about.
The author also discusses the comfort that she found in
(08:12):
not only listening to break up songs, but even making
breakup songs, writing out the lyrics, playing her guitar right. UM.
Self expression can definitely help after a traumatic experience, and
six study in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology found that
students who wrote about traumatic events they had experienced ended
up having fewer visits to the health center six months
(08:35):
after writing, in comparison with those who just wrote about
something trivial. In the moment, their blood pressure went up
because I mean, that makes sense, you're reliving what happened
to you. But after the fact, you know, you're calmer,
you've gotten it out. Maybe you've worked out some things
in your head and you've gotten it down on paper,
so it's sort of like you've gotten rid of it.
It's out there in the world. UM. What's interesting is
(08:58):
that this effect is actually amplified when you share your
writing with other people. So you write about your traumatic experience,
it helps you. You write about your traumatic experience, and
then you share it with people and you you read
what you wrote, or you just relay the story to people,
it helps even more, which is why I am such
(09:19):
a complainer a lot people. I'm trying to do is
stay healthy. It makes complete sense to me that sharing
that kind of writing would would be so psychologically soothing
for us, because we're mourning the loss of a very
personal and close connection with someone else, and it's a
connection that you feel in that moment when it's the worst,
(09:39):
you feel like you're never going to find with anybody else,
and there is really no exciting reason to wake up
in the morning because you are by yourself among a
sea of you know, acquaintances and who cares. Yeah, I'm
just gonna start to cry now. But by listening to
(10:00):
breakup songs perhaps and writing that and communicating the emotions,
it rebuilds that kind of emotional connection that you are mourning.
Um For instance, there was an essay that we found
about the psychology of breakup songs and talks about how
it woos us into a calmer mental state by co
(10:24):
regulating our affect and recreating the affective connection like a
mother soothing her infant. Interesting. I mean, it's basically we
want to be because we want to be comforted. And
it's hard during breakups because typically the person that we
would initially run to for comfort if something external happened
to us, that we had a bad day at work
or a fight with our best friend, they would be
(10:44):
the person that was incorrect grammar. He or she would
be the person that we would that we would run
to and write. And eventually your friends are going to
get sick of listening to so yeah, you probably should
just listen to music. So you might want to set
up a playlist on iTunes, right, Um, And you know,
along the lines of what you were just saying, Stephen
Brown from Carolinska Institute said that music is a powerful
(11:06):
device for promoting a group identity, cognition, coordination, and catharsis.
Like we said earlier, it kind of draws you back
to other people. Um. You know, music didn't start necessarily
as a solitary activity. Back when we were cave men
and women, you know, we were we were hanging out,
banging the drums together, right. Um. And there's an essay
(11:27):
that I found about breakup songs written by tal from
Talent to Get Downstay Down, and she's talking about the
pleasure break up up songs. And I really liked her
perspective because she's writing from the perspective of of being
a musician. And um, she says that the best breakup
songs tap into thousands of years of the romantic tradition,
the questioning, the regret, the disappointment, and then the moaning,
(11:52):
and it kind of keeps you rooted in the heartache
for a little while because you want to wallow from
me and breakup songs. How to give you that space? Well,
you should wallow, Yeah, wallowing. If you're not wallowing, okay,
maybe eventually wallowing is is too much and you should
just try to get that. But you know, I mean,
(12:12):
if you don't deal with it, you're just gonna have
I mean, it's gonna come do at some point. I mean,
we all I told my stories in the Rebound episode. Okay, yeah,
you have to deal with your heartache. And and so
listening to this music, hearing what other people have gone through,
and you feel like someone else is putting words and
and a melody to your feelings. You know it can
(12:33):
be helpful, absolutely, and as far as people who aren't
yet feeling better. A two thousand four German study looked
at what kind of love songs men and women chose
to listen to in the context of their romantic situations,
and as you might expect, romantically frustrated men listen to
love lamenting music longer than did more content men, and
(12:54):
the same was true for romantically disenchanted women versus the
hopeful ones. But something that I found was a little interesting,
and it kind of kind of made me think about
what music I listened to when I'm in a happy relationship.
Women and happy relationships exhibited an unexpectedly strong preference for
music denouncing love. Really, I don't know, I don't know
what that's about. So you're in a good real you're
(13:17):
saying you're in a content relationship and but you're but
you're kind of musically steering clear of it. Mustang maybe
you're avoiding attachment or something. But I'm just by you,
I mean just she means the general you. Participants that is,
that's fascinating. Well, why don't we offer some um, some
of the top rated breakup songs. Let's do it among
(13:38):
some different genres to get the conversation started, because listeners,
you're probably gonna guess the question I'm asking to ask
right now, which is what are your go to breakup songs?
Because they're also the different kind of categories of the
breakup song. There's a really sad and mournful breakup song,
and then there's more bitter, don't like Don't Think Twice
(14:00):
It's All Right by Bob Dylan, which is also a
go to of mine, and then we have the awesome
lady empowerment songs such as Destiny's Child, survivor Kelly Clarkson.
We've already mentioned um Oh Cielos a song which is
screw You. I think in radio PC terms, yeah, I
think it's forget you, Forget you, That's what it is.
(14:24):
Um Oh, the classic Alanis Morissett. You ought to know
that Dave Coolier really screwed her. We did a number
Gloria Gainers, I Will Survive. And for the more more
indie rock um listeners out there, We've got a list
from NPRS all songs considered, and they recommend the district
(14:45):
sleeps Alone Tonight by the Postal Service, parting Gift by
Fiona Apple, No Children by the Mountain Goats. Oh yeah,
I love that song. Oh yeah, I do. I love
that song. And if you're in a little bit more
of a mood to laugh and cry or cry laugh
as we like to do sometimes here on Mom Mom stuff,
(15:06):
there's always I'm Not Crying by Fly of the Concords,
which was on more than one breakup songs list that
I ran across, so it resonates with a lot of
people apparently. But yeah, let us know your favorite breakup
songs and really what resonates with you, because yeah, like
I said, my my go to was always Elliott's Smiths XO,
(15:26):
although I did go through a Forget You phase at
some point. It's a good one to run to if
you want a double like an empowerment combo, go running
while listening to Celo's Forget You. I love that whole album.
Yeah that's great. Well, I know this is slightly off topic,
but I also want to know about music that you
can't listen to anymore because either you listen to it
(15:49):
during a breakup or you listen to it during a
relationship and then that guy broke your heart and like
I it took me forever to be able to listen
to Mates of State again. Some se left it. Oh yeah,
because I was listening to it while we were so happy,
and then the next thing, I know, like we're not
so happy, and then I just yeah, every time I
listen to that album, because music can cause such strong
(16:11):
uh feelings, You can have such a strong connection between
music and an event. Um, Yeah, I just it brought
up all sorts of bad memories and whatever. Yeah. I
had an experience like that with the album Minds from Phenomena,
and yeah, I think about it sometimes and have to
sort of avoid that album. But it only speaks again
(16:32):
to that visceral reaction that that music can elicit from
our our SaraBellum, in our Mesolympic system. Now I can
have that word exactly. So on that note, send us
to songs, folks, or post them over at at Facebook. Um,
I'd like to get a nice mom stuff breakup playlist
(16:53):
ready for it together. Yeah. Uh So in the meantime,
let's read a cup of emails. I have one here
from John in response to our episode on romance novels.
He said, I have been waiting ever since I first
started listening to your podcast for an episode on romance novels.
(17:15):
Thank you in all caps, I'm a heterosexual male who
just so happens to enjoy reading romance novels. Um. I
like the romance novels that have the fully fledged female
characters that are intelligent, have their own views, and not
just some meek little thing that cowers and waits for
someone to come save them. I guess I prefer that
(17:35):
to the female characters who you described as static hollo shells,
because I'm a male and generally don't have the same
thought processes, and it's kind of boring if the female
is just a wet dish rag all the time. I know.
I think my favorite romance novel would be the Paranormal
Romance Twist by Colby Hodge. Involves time travel to a
future where vampires have pretty much taken over and you
(17:58):
live by the samurai store. Well interesting combination. Yes, this
one is from Danielle. She says, my two sisters and
I enjoy romance novels and have talked about the most
common themes we've noticed in the books and thought there
should be a study down of how many couples use
a condom but still end up pregnant. Because the fail
rate in these books tends to be staggeringly high, but
(18:20):
we enjoy them. We have sort of made it a
game to find the most ridiculous romance romance titles, which
usually falls under Harlequin, and I thought I would share
these with you. Be aware these are actual book titles.
Here we go, Oh my goodness, all right, willingly betted,
forcibly wedded, innocent wife, baby of shame, pregnant by the
(18:43):
boss exclamation point, the Millionaires, inexperienced love slave millionaire and
the pregnant paper and our favorite rancher and the amnesiac bride.
Hope these made you laugh as much as they did
for us. And who keeps the podcast coming? Thank you
ranch Your ambiac Brad might be that's the most specific title.
(19:05):
You know exactly what you're getting into it. That one.
I just love the unnecessary use of an exclamation point.
Pregnant by the blass I've been amnes is a pretty
common condition in romance novels too, Yeah, anything like soaps. Well,
thank you everyone who's written in about romance novels and
so much more, and thank you in advance for your
your breakup song stories. Again. Our email address is mom
(19:27):
Stuff at how stuff works dot com. You can always
hit us up on Facebook as well and follow follow
us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast, and you can
check out what we're writing during the week on the
blog It's stuff Mom Never told You from how stuff
works dot com. Be sure to check out our new
(19:49):
video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how stuf work
staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride.
Download it today on iTunes.
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