- Manish Bande
- Global News Beat – BBC
In the experience of separation, we are overwhelmed by a storm of feelings of sadness at times, and resentment at other times.
And in the face of that storm, we may resort to indulging in something, such as watching TV shows, or indulging in eating fast food, or we may resort to unloading our feelings in our notebooks.
And if you are a world-renowned musician, then you may resort to recording a song attacking your lover who left. Then you go to the internet and download that song, before you step back and see the result of what you did.
This is at least what the Colombian star did, Shakira, with her new song Out of Your League, “Higher Than Your Level,” in which she attacked her ex-husband, Gerard Pique, Barcelona defender. Shakira’s song broke records on the YouTube platform.
And Shakira is not the only one who took this path, because many of the fans of the American star Miley Cyrus believe that her song Flowers, “The Roses”, is talking about her former lover, Liam Hemsworth, the Australian actor.
It is not new for pop stars to dump their feelings into songs. Previously, singer Adele and Taylor Swift – two of the kings of breakup songs.
So did Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber – just some of the big names who sang the heartbreaking breakup.
But the question is, what attracts in breakup songs?
The story of lost love
The first reason for the success of these songs may seem clear, which is that there is no person who has not been exposed to distance from the beloved – whether active or objectified – at a stage of his life.
No one denies that the experience is painful, everyone understands that feeling. This is according to Martin Wright, lecturer in lyric poetry at the Birmingham Conservatory of Music.
Martin Wright believes that the best songs that express feelings of separation are those experienced by its writers.
“If I am the one who will leave you, I will talk about the aesthetics of freedom and empowerment…but if I am the one who initiated and abandoned me, then I will talk about the bitterness of sadness at one time and the pleasure of revenge at another,” according to Martin Wright.
And in her song “Above Your Level” Shakira admirably mixed all these ingredients in one line: “I will not return to you, no matter how much you cry, no matter how much you beg.”
Then comes the talk about the second component – the reason for the separation.
“Is it the lovers’ fault? Or is life imposing fates that the lovers have no way of violating?” Martin Wright asks.
After the separation, we look at what that step caused the two lovers, but we only find that in a song.