Even if you're the strong and silent type, there's nothing like the catharsis of listening to a song - slushy or otherwise - to help you through a breakup. But which are the best breakup songs? Here is our list of the very best, plucked from the worlds of classical and jazz music.
Best breakup songs
'I'd Rather Go Blind'
Etta James
Etta James, the iconic American blues and soul singer, wrote in her autobiography Rage To Survive that she heard the song outlined by her friend Ellington ‘Fugi’ Jordan when she visited him in prison. Despite writing the rest of the song with Jordan, she then gave her songwriting credit to her then-partner, Billy Foster, citing tax reasons.
Still, James is synonymous with this song, whose heartbreaking lyrics (‘I'd rather be blind, boy /Than to see you walk away’), have been widely interpreted as autobiographical. Some have even read them as a metaphor for James’s heroin addiction.
‘Addio del passato’
from Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata
It’s one of those classic ‘just-too-late’ moments. Violetta, the consumptive heroine of Verdi's great opera La traviata, is about to die. She receives a letter from the father of her lover Alfredo, saying that the latter has discovered why she lied about her love for him and that he is coming to her. But she knows that there isn’t enough time. This aria is her sobbing farewell to Alfredo and the happiness she experienced with him.
'Cry Me a River'
Julie London
Written by the American songwriter Arthur Hamilton for Ella Fitzgerald, this song was meant to debut as part of the score for the 1955 film Pete Kelly’s Blues. In the event, however, the song was dropped from the film. Instead, it was debuted by the singer Julie London - whose sultry voice had a completely different flavour from Fitzgerald’s.
As a BBC Legends episode put it: ‘Some singers sing as though they are addressing a crowd; some sing as though they are in a bar with a lot of people. [London] sings as though she's in one room, with you—and that's the difference.’ It was just the right flavour for this mournful song about heartbreak.
That's perhaps why, despite being interpreted by many singers over the years, not least Michael Bublé, London’s version remains the most famous. And, indeed, is a shoo-in in any list of the greatest breakup songs.
'Donde lieta usci'
from Giacomo Puccini's La bohème
This aria from Act III of Puccini’s La bohème is sung by the heroine Mimi, just after she and her lover Rodolfo agree to part. Rodolfo attributes the breakup to their frequent arguments. In reality, he is terrified by Mimi’s sickness, the prospect of losing her and his inability to care for her, owing to his poverty and humble living conditions.
Translating as ‘from here she happily left’, the song’s title suggests an amicable breakup. However, the pain underpinning it is clear from the gut-wrenching music. This is one of the most emotive and best breakup songs out there.
More of the best songs about breakup and heartbreak
'You Don’t Know what Love Is'
Dinah Washington
Though written by Don Raye and Gene de Paul, this 1941 breakup song was made famous by Dinah Washington, the legendary American singer also known as the 'Queen of the blues'. Her bright, clear voice lends a poignant touch of innocence to its message about the cost of love. Since then, the song has been interpreted by a whole range of artists ranging from Nina Simone to Billie Holiday.
Many would call 'You Don’t Know what Love Is' a sad song. For me, it’s more multifaceted: as much a tribute to the optimism of love as to the pain of losing it. As such, it's one of the best breakup songs out there, balancing pain with hope.
- We named Dinah Washington one of the greatest female jazz musicians of all time
- Sad songs: 10 of the saddest songs in history
'These Foolish Things (Remind me of You)'
Billie Holiday
This breakup song, in which the narrator is surrounded by reminders of a lost lover, was not immediately popular. Eric Maschwitz - then head of Variety at the BBC - wrote the lyrics in 1935, allegedly inspired by the cabaret singer Jean Ross, with whom he had had a youthful love affair.
He dictated the words over the phone to the composer Jack Strachey, who wrote the music. Then….tumbleweed.
Nobody showed any interest, until, in 1936, the famous West Indian singer and pianist Leslie Hutchinson (better known as “Hutch”) discovered the song on top of a piano in Maschwitz’s office at the BBC. He liked it and recorded it, creating an instant hit.
Since then, scores of jazz musicians have made their mark on the song, most famous of them being Billie Holiday, whose version drives home the haunting quality of the words.
‘Addio, fiorito asil’
from Puccini's Madam Butterfly
You could say this breakup song, from Puccini's Madam Butterfly, is the operatic equivalent of dumping someone by text. Having abandoned Butterfly, and taken her child into the bargain, Pinkerton has now come to bid his former lover farewell. But he realises, on arrival, that he can’t face it.
So he makes do with saying goodbye to the house where they spent many happy times together. The music suggests that he feels pretty bad about it. But for some reason it’s hard to feel too sorry for him.
Die Seejungfrau
by Alexander Zemlinsky
Alexander Zemlinsky’s Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid) is a symphonic poem inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Little Mermaid. Composed between 1902 and 1903, the piece reflects Zemlinsky’s deeply personal emotions, particularly his heartbreak over Alma Schindler (who later married Gustav Mahler). The music is lush, impressionistic, and full of yearning, capturing both the beauty and sorrow of the mermaid’s tragic fate.
Originally intended as a three-movement fantasy, Die Seejungfrau was premiered in 1905 but later withdrawn by Zemlinsky. The score was lost for decades, with parts resurfacing separately before being reconstructed and performed again in the 1980s. Today, it is considered one of Zemlinsky’s most evocative and richly orchestrated works, standing alongside Mahler and early Schoenberg in its late-Romantic expressiveness.
'When I am Laid'
from Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
This aria from Henry Purcell’s 1688 opera Dido and Aeneas finds Dido, distraught at Aeneas’s betrayal, preparing to stab herself. But what makes it so uniquely effective? Perhaps it’s the yearning melody, or the chromatically descending ground bass, or that sense of distilled despair in the text.
For all its surface simplicity, Dido’s lament is full of musical sleights of hand. Those leaning appoggiaturas in the vocal part, the ornamentation in the strings: all conspire to make this one of the most tragic songs of heartbreak in the history of English opera.
'Ich hab ein gluhend Messer'
from Gustav Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
Written around 1884–85 in response to Mahler's unhappy love for the soprano Johanna Richter, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) telescopes the process of getting over a lover into 20 minutes of impassioned song.
This third movement from the cycle, 'Ich hab ein gluhend Messer' ('I have a gleaming knife' is probably the most visceral. It likes the pain of lost love to having a metal blade piercing one’s heart. With its driving music, full of tonal instability, it is pretty agonised and agonising stuff. No less than you would expect from a composer widely considered to be one of classical music’s greatest drama queens. Best breakup song? It's up there.
'Mon Dieu'
Edith Piaf
Speaking to that universal desire to cling onto love, even if only for a little while longer, this 1960 song ranks amongst the most famous in Edith Piaf’s repertory, which is saying something. Yet, when its composer Charles Dumont originally presented it to Piaf, the chanteuse was not impressed.
‘The music is very beautiful, but the text is completely impossible. What is the name of the song?’, Piaf allegedly asked. ‘Toulon-Le Havre-Anvers’, answered Dumont. ‘Grotesque’, said Piaf. ‘Completely ridiculous and stupid. Who wrote this?’ ‘Michel Vaucaire’. So in the middle of the night Piaf called Vaucaire and asked him to bring her a new text the next day.
He duly obeyed, gave his new version to Charles Dumont who played it and sang it - much to Piaf’s approval. ‘Toulon-Le Havre-Anvers’ had become ‘Mon Dieu’. And one of music's best breakup songs was born.
