My exes have all asked me the same question: “Can’t we just be happy for each other, be friends?” The answer: “If I’ve found somebody else who makes me happy, and you’re miserable and beating your head against the wall that you ever let me go…sure. If not, I don’t think so.”

I know this is a small and petty way to be, but I am, at twenty five, still a small and petty person. Or maybe I have an overly developed instinct for self-preservation. I can’t fathom how people can be friends with someone they were never “friends” with in the first place. And even if it was a friendship that somehow turned into a relationship, I still don’t think it can ever go back to a genuine “I’m happy for you and vice versa” friendship. There’s a saying that you can turn a cucumber into a pickle, but never the other way around. The same principle applies here.

But in my own way, I’ve learned one thing: there never is a good way or good time to break up. My problem in the past has been to want some sort of Bridges of Madison County goodbye. One last perfect memory in order to let each other go with dignity and grace. That last sentimental goodbye is the only way I could get closure.

Closure always means sex.

Then fighting. Then an unfortunate scene. Then the perfect memory is ruined, and I need to replace it with another last last time. More closure.

I’ve also learned that breaking up, like most things in life, needs a good soundtrack. In High Fidelity, Rob says after a devastating breakup, “…for awhile, I regarded just about any song in which somebody had lost somebody else as spookily relevant, which, as that covers the whole of pop music…meant I felt pretty spooked more or less the whole time.” And it is true; after a break up I indulge myself in thinking the lyrics of every song are utterly, profoundly, exactly what I’m feeling right now. Then again, I feel the same way when I’m falling in love and thinking that every song sounds like us. Sigh. Of course all music on the radio is about falling in or out of love, and in these emotionally charged and highly irrational states I can’t be blamed for thinking every song was written with me in mind.

But then I read an article today that said, “Despite the laments of pining pop stars and sad sack poets, U.S. researchers now think breaking up may not be so hard to do…” Apparently, we overestimate the actual level of distress we feel. So maybe it’s more the anxiety of anticipated pain than actual pain itself. 

Either way, music helps. And so here is a short, and in no way comprehensive, list of my top break-up songs:
 

Driving away, shaking with the kind of anger where you can barely light a cigarette: Tool, “Schism.” As loud as your Honda stock stereo will allow. There’s something about that forty second musical intro, the one where drum and guitar and bass meld together to form an eerie, hypnotic, mesmerizing loop that focuses all your scattered anger until you’re rocking back and forth like Demi Moore in that empty house in St. Elmo’s Fire. And then Maynard Keegan, at first chanting in monotone, then escalating into full-on primal scream: “I know the pieces fit, but I watched them fall apart…Between supposed lovers…” I can’t think of anything more soothing.

Runner-up: Anything Fiona Apple, but particularly “Get Gone.” from the When the Pawn… album. “It’s time the truth comes out, that he don’t give a shit about me…” and her voice gets all quiet and sweet. She’s taunting him, and then out of nowhere she growls, “Fucking go, cause I’ve done what I could for you.”

Having gotten home and calmed down. You’re not in denial anymore, but are still going to lie on your bed all night staring at the ceiling and running everything you could have said through your mind: Guns and Roses, “November Rain.” Forget Axl’s dreadlocks and Chinese Democracy, and the fact that the “next Rolling Stones” never lived up to their promise. This song is eight perfect minutes of longing and acceptance of loss: “Cause nothing lasts forever, and we both know hearts can change.”

This song gets an honorary award for best MTV video of all time, with the helicopter shots of Slash wearing that leather vest and top hat playing guitar in front of the church. Stephanie Seymour’s bridal bouquet falling through the air and blood everywhere and Axl leaning over her casket. Watching it as a ten year old, it was a heady and distorted perception of love.  (I had always been unclear as to what kills her, but a quick check on Wikipedia revealed that the song is based on a Del James story in which a druggie rocker’s ex-girlfriend shoots herself while listening to his music. This makes sense considering there’s a mirror in her coffin so that only one side of her face shows. But in the video, Axl also walks near a gun shop, leading to the belief that maybe he kills her in the video. Another theory is that she was killed by the lightning storm in the wedding scene.)

Runner-up: Dave Matthews Band, “Let You Down” from their sophomore album Crash. So many different opinions on Dave; it seems you either love him or hate him. And if you love him you’re probably wearing a striped rugby shirt, cargo shirts, flip-flops, and a hat with a college football team logo. And sitting on a blanket, passing a joint around, and doing that rocking back and forth eyes closed dance. But the simple guitar, the almost spooky whistle, and Dave not singing so much as talking: “I let you down…I’m a puppy for your love.”
 

Second runner-up: The Cranberries, “Miss You When You’re Gone.” What happened to the Cranberries? Dolores O’Riordan has a voice that makes you shiver it’s so haunting.
 

Third runner-up (You are up all night): Led Zeppelin, “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” Besides having one of the best guitar intros of all time (it reminds me of a sticky sultry summer night), hearing Robert Plant sound exhausted and drained with the effort of loving her: “…since I’ve been loving you, I’m about to lose my worried mind.”
 

Waking up and feeling the need to lip-sync sassily in the mirror while you’re getting dressed. You’re so over it: John Legend, “Used to Love You.” The piano sounds like an entire gospel choir is behind you, and the album is appropriately titled “Get Lifted.” You’re the one who’s going to be OK when John sings, “Realized that I just don’t love you, not like I used to. ”
 

Having drunk a bottle of Merlot that night and decided it’s a really good idea to call, just to ask if he needs the closure you do: The King of Soul himself, Sam Cooke singing “Bring it on Home to Me.” What is it about Sam Cooke? He can sing about working on a chain gang and make it sound appealing. That smooth, earnest voice sounds like a wry smile in the face of pain. Lots of pain, considering he was murdered at thirty three (over a woman who says he kidnapped her. Or he was set up; the stories vary) wearing only a trench coat and one shoe. But it’s all about the drawling, pleading way he says, “If you ever change your mind, about leaving, leaving me behind.”
 

Runner-up: The Godfather of Soul, James Brown singing “Please, Please, Please.” How much simpler does it get? “Please, please, please don’t go, I love you so.”
 

The songstress that will carry you through every phase of grief in the Kubler-Ross model. Denial, grief, bargaining, depression, acceptance: Mariah Carey. A friend with impeccable musical taste (and a closet Mariah fan) told me not to write this before I established street cred with this column. But I love Mariah Carey. There I said it. I’ve had an intimate relationship with her music since I was eight. That’s seventeen years of really, really high notes.

I first discovered her in 1990 when the triumphant, oh no you didn’t just leave me single “Someday” came out. In the video, she does the running man like she’s working out all that aggression at him, and I did it along with her. And that was only the first breakup song in a litany spanning two decades.

The melodramatic “Can’t Live if Living Is Without You,” the desperate “Can’t Let Go,” the pleading, “Don’t Wanna Cry,” the patiently instructive “Love Takes Time:” “to heal when you’re hurting so much.”

There’s the single if you ascribe (however naively) to the school of Let it go. If It comes back, it’s yours forever. If not it was never meant to be: “Always Be My Baby:” “You’ll always be a part of me, I’ll love you indefinitely. Oh boy, you know you’ll never shake me…”

My personal favorite: “Breakdown.” “You called yesterday, to basically say, that you cared for me but that you’re just not in love.” Who hasn’t heard those words? I’m cringing just writing them.

She does a truly devastating cover of Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds.” And two summers ago, I was definitely singing along to the hopeful, if a slight bit needy, “We Belong Together.”

But on her last album, Mariah began to change her attitude toward breaking up; she told us simply to “Shake It Off.” “Cause the loving ain’t the same, and you keep on playing games.”

And, hey, sometimes that’s all you can do.