Three Breakup Songs You Might Not Know About and Two You Probably Do, by Dave White:

 I listen to a lot of noisy music. Like stupid noisy. Extremely unpleasant to most ears. Like the kind I have to turn off when my husband walks in the front door and gives me the line that, for us, is our "Hi honey, I'm home." Here's what he says:

"What's this shit you're listening to?"

The thing about terrifying, party-clearing noise music is that it's not often about tender subject like love and sadness. It's mostly about  killing people. But I have a tender side. And I love sad breakup songs even though I haven't been the dumper or the dumpee since about 1994. It's just good to remember, when you're in a really long-term relationship, that if you don't behave yourself it could still happen to you at any moment.

Here are some I like:

Gangstarr - Ex Girl to Next Girl

Guru talks about this girl who thought she was too good for him because he lived in Brooklyn and she had fancier airs. So he respectfully ended the relationship. I like this song because he doesn't go off on a lady-hating spree, he simply refuses to acknowledge her presence at the bus stop. Walks on by. Has stuff to do.

The Korgis - Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime

Big hit, so you probably remember it, especially if you're old. I don't even know if this IS a breakup song because all the guy says is that he "needs your lovin' like the sunshine." But because these guys were from England where it rains 27 hours a day, I suspect that that means he hardly gets the lovin'. Also, the part where he says "everybody's got to learn sometime" over and over is really sad. Beck covered it for the "Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind" soundtrack so that means Michel Gondry thinks it's a breakup song too.

Nanci Griffith - Anyone Can Be Somebody's Fool

Do not listen to Nanci Griffith if you don't want to start crying over a relationship that's not even yours. This sweet, little, steel-guitary thing features Nanci consoling a friend with lots of booze and explaining that "when this winter's over you're gonna walk knee deep in clover and your heart will round a corner." And then? You realize that she's trying to soothe a friend that SHE used to be in love with herself. Pretty much the opposite of what Tammy Wynette's behavior would have been in the same situation.

The Smiths - I Know It's Over

If you're on a website devoted to books then that means you've listened to The Smiths and you know this song too. Dude wants to be buried alive, "can feel the soil falling over [his] head," that's how bummed he is. And unlike listening to something like Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing," which will make you probably actually want to commit suicide, Morrissey's miserablism was always a defiant empathetic one. You knew that no matter how awful you felt, he'd already been there and written a crazy depression song about it. Comforting in its own way.

A.C. - Ha Ha Your Wife Left You

This is by a band whose name is so offensive that most of the time they only go by their initials. Everyone hates them—except horrible people. And this song is exactly what the title says it is. It's for someone you hate that you'd like to kick when they're down, the opposite of the Nanci Griffith song I just told you about. Because there's a time for every emotion, you know?