Heartbreak music: Best breakup songs for 2022 for the anti-Valentine's Day crowd

I've already done two Valentine's Day playlists for the benefit of those of you who plan to celebrate the holiday as God — and by God, I mean Cupid — intended, saying it with flowers and/or greeting cards, perhaps a box of candy just to let that special someone know that you can be romantic when you put it on the calendar. But what about the growing anti-Valentine's Day movement? Don't they need a soundtrack, too? They do. We all need soundtracks (if not, as Solomon Burke so soulfully put forth before Adele was born, somebody to love). With that in mind, we've assembled this playlist for those who hate Valentine's Day with a passion.

Please note: This is not a definitive playlist. There are thousands of songs that could have been included.

Adele, 'Hello'

This tortured ballad finds the singer playing to her soulful strengths while exploring the aftershocks of doomed romance. “Hello, it's me,” she begins. “I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet to go over everything / They say that time's supposed to heal, yeah / But I ain't done much healing.” So why is she calling? “To tell you I’m sorry for breaking your heart / But it don’t matter / It clearly doesn’t tear you apart anymore.” It’s a rarely heard-from perspective, which makes it a far more interesting record than if she’d merely been playing the victim.

Elvis Costello, 'I Want You'

Only Elvis Costello could make the words "I love you" feel so much like someone's hands around your throat as they do in the opening lines of this, his darkest hour. And it just gets creepier from there. While millions tuning into Casey Kasem in the '80s somehow missed the stalking subtext of the Police's “Every Breath You Take,” there can be no mistaking Costello's cruel intentions here, as love turns to obsession turns to hate. A slow-burning Beatlesque ballad, it’s framed by funereal pipe organ music, a dissonant two-note guitar lead and what feels like Elvis whispering in your ear. The song builds to a harrowing climax as he begs his former lover for the "stupid details" that his heart is breaking for. "I want to hear he pleases you more than I do," he sputters. "Did you call his name out as he held you down? Oh no, my darling, not with that clown."

Drake, 'Hotline Bling'

Few rappers are better at nursing romantic resentment than Drake, who sets the tone here by pining his way through a chorus about how “You used to call me on my cellphone / Late night when you need my love.” Sounds like a booty call to me. But Drake was thinking long-term booty call and she was clearly thinking “Not so much.” As he sings in the opening verse “Girl you got me down, you got me stressed out / 'Cause ever since I left the city / you started wearing less and goin' out more / Glasses of champagne out on the dance floor / Hangin' with some girls I never seen before.”

Joy Division, 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'

The antithesis of the Captain & Tenille's "Love Will Keep Us Together," this brooding post-punk classic paints a vivid, chilling portrait of a couple living through the slow dissolve of losing interest in each other. Take the second verse, where Ian Curtis sings, "Why is the bedroom so cold? / You've turned away on your side / Is my timing that flawed? / Our respect runs so dry / Yet there's still this appeal / That we've kept through our lives." Another key line? "You cry out in your sleep / All my failings exposed."

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Justin Timberlake, 'Cry Me a River'

Believed to be inspired by the singer’s failed relationship with Britney Spears, this single is a tortured breakup song in which a clearly wounded Timberlake promises a former flame that when she does come to her senses and decides she wants him back, she can cry him a river. And that may seem cold, but it certainly seems like the woman deserves it. As Timberlake lays out the plot in the opening verse: “You were my sun / You were my earth / But you didn't know all the ways I loved you, no / So you took a chance / And made other plans / But I bet you didn't think that they would come crashing down, no.”

Wilco, 'Via Chicago'

Jeff Tweedy sets the tone with a chillingly matter-of-fact delivery of “I dreamed about killing you again last night and it felt all right to me / Dying on the banks of Embarcadero skies / I sat and watched you bleed / Buried you alive in a fireworks display / Raining down on me / Your cold, hot blood ran away from me to the sea.” And it only gets sadder from there, as you realize he still wants her back. “I know I'll make it back one of these days and turn on your TV,” he sings. “To watch a man with a face like mine being chased down a busy street / When he gets caught, I won’t get up and I wont go to sleep / I'm coming home.”

Future Islands, 'Seasons (Waiting on You)'

As singer Sam Herring has said, this soulful synth-pop gem is a song about "love, letting go, learning from your mistakes and always feeling that pull — yearning for a certain love, as time goes by and seasons change." And as depressing as he makes it sound, the song is actually a slight bit sadder when you listen to it. He's tired of trying to change for her and waiting on her to give a little bit for him.

The Magnetic Fields, 'I Don’t Believe in the Sun'

Delivering the words in a wonderfully melodramatic croon, Stephen Merritt is so broken up in the wake the wake of a breakup, he’s taken to viewing the sunlight as a cruel trick being played at his expense. “The only sun I ever knew,” he sighs, “was the beautiful one that was you / Since you went away, it's night time all day / And it's usually raining, too.”

Tobias Jesso Jr., 'Without You'

An unrequited love song built on the saddest piano chords at his disposal, it starts with a desperate plea of "Why can't you just love me? / Should I move on or should I wait?" before moving on to an equally desperate chorus hook of "I can hardly breathe without you / There is no future I want to see without you."

Harry Nilsson, 'Without You'

As sad as Jesso’s clearly Nilsson-esque “Without You” is, it can’t compete with Nilsson's own take on the Badfinger classic of the same name when it comes to mining pathos. In the opening verse he sets the scene with “No, I can't forget this evening / Or your face as you were leaving / But I guess that's just the way the story goes / You always smile but in your eyes your sorrow shows.” And the sorrow is certainly showing by the time he pours his heart out on a chorus hook that lays it on the line with “I can’t live if living is without you.”

The Kinks, 'End of the Season'

It begins with the chirping of birds, but they're about to beat a path for warmer climes as Ray Davies makes his entrance with a wistful sigh of "Winter time is coming / All the sky is grey / Summer birds aren't singing / Since you went away." A music-hall-inspired highlight of the great "Something Else By the Kinks," it finds the singer pining for a love who's gone off "on a yacht near an island in Greece" in lines that speak to Davies' standing as the Noel Coward of the British rock set. "I get no kicks walking down Saville Row," he pines. "There's no more chicks left where the green grass grows and I know that winter is here."

Heems featuring Dev Hynes, 'Home'

Das Racist rapper Heems goes solo with a track whose dreamy yet exotic sense of atmosphere provides the perfect backdrop to a breakup song that makes the most of Hynes' soulful falsetto. Heems' lyrics cut straight to the heart of the breakup from the first words rapped: "All I got is the sweater that you left, the letters that I kept / That spoke of how you liked when I kissed you on the neck." And he goes on the capture the anxiety of separation again and again in simple yet effective lines, from "If I could, I'd forget you / But I can't since I left you" to "When it's cold outside, yeah, I miss you / But we had too many issues."

Nazareth, 'Love Hurts'

I know I should go with the Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris version of this song, but hear me out. I don’t think soulful understatement is the way to go when you’re looking to wallow in the misery a broken heart can bring. And there is no mistaking Dan McCafferty’s lead vocal here for soulful understatement. He sounds like he tears enough to drown the whole damn band from the opening line: “Love hurts / Love scars / Love wounds and marks / Any heart not tough / Or strong enough to take a lot of pain.”

George Jones, 'He Stopped Loving Her Today'

Is this the saddest breakup song in history? I’m pretty sure it is. A perfectly constructed country ballad, it begins with a verse about the breakup. “He said ‘I'll love you till I die,’” Jones sings. “She told him ‘You'll forget in time’ / As the years went slowly by / She still preyed upon his mind.” He keeps her picture on the wall, a stack of letter at his bedside with the words ‘I love you’ underlined in red. Until the chorus hits and Jones sing “He stopped loving her today.” He’s moving on, but not the way you’d hope. “They placed a wreath upon his door,” Jones continues. “And soon they'll carry him away.” The song’s most devastating lines, though, may be just before that first refrain: “I went to see him just today,” Jones sings. “Oh, but I didn't see no tears / All dressed up to go away / First time I'd seen him smile in years.”

Beck, 'Guess I’m Doing Fine'

A song called “Guess I’m Doing Fine” is bound to be depressing, and this one definitely lives up to the promise of its title, a haunted pedal-steel-guitar part underscoring Beck’s delivery as he sets the scene with “There’s a bluebird at my window / I can’t hear the songs he sings.” But that’s before he tries to put the pain of separation in perspective on the chorus. “It’s only lies that I’m living / It’s only tears that I’m crying / It’s only you that I’m losing / Guess I’m doing fine.”

Sinead O’Connor, 'Nothing Compares 2 U'

Everybody want to talk about the tears O’Connor sheds in the iconic video. And I completely get that. But this Prince song she made famous was already devastating long before we got to see her cry. Even the tiniest details are designed to rip your heart out. Consider the opening line: “It's been seven hours and 15 days since you took your love away.” By putting the hours in front of the days, it puts the focus on how badly she’s obsessing – counting the hours since you took your love away two weeks into the breakup.

Ray Charles, 'Drown in My Own Tears'

The man has cried so much, he’s pretty sure it’s possible that he could drown in his own tears. And all because you went away. “I sit and cry just like a child,” Charles sings. “My pouring tears are runnin' wild / If you don't think / You'll be home soon / I guess I'll drown in my own tears.” And Charles’ aching vocal only makes it that much sadder.

Skeeter Davis, 'The End of the World'

In this tear-stained ballad, the end of the world is strictly metaphorical — "''cause you don't love me anymore." But truthfully? I'm not sure Skeeter Davis would have sounded any sadder if it was about the actual world ending. The opening line is pure apocalyptic poetry: "Why does the sun go on shining? / Why does the sea rush to shore?/Don't they know it's the end of the world?" She goes on to wonder why the birds go on singing, ends the bridge with a heartbreaking sigh of "I can't understand how life goes on the way it does" and starts the final verse with a brilliantly melodramatic recitation.

Grimes, 'Flesh Without Blood'

Claire Boucher’s chirpy vocals somehow only underscore the pathos of her lyrics on this haunting New Wave throwback. In the opening verse, she sings, “Remember when we used to say / ‘I love you’ almost every day / I saw a light in you going out as I closed our window / You never liked me anyway.” And by the second verse, the feeling has grown mutual.

The Beach Boys, 'Here Today'

This "Pet Sounds" highlight puts a truly fatalistic spin on matters of the heart. At first, the warning allows for that possibility of happiness: "A brand new love affair is such a beautiful thing / But if you're not careful think about the pain it can bring." You just have to be careful. But the next words out of Mike Love's mouth are "It makes you feel so bad / It makes your heart feel sad / It makes your days go wrong / It makes your nights so long." And then the chorus hits you with, "You've got to keep in mind love is here today and it's gone tomorrow / It's here and gone so fast." Go for the amazing orchestration, stay for the doom and despair.

Gilbert O’Sullivan, 'Alone Again (Naturally)'

The man responds to being stood up on his wedding day with suicidal fantasies on this pathos-laden soft-rock classic. “In a little while from now,” he begins, “if i'm not feeling any less sour / I promise myself to treat myself and visit a nearby tower / And climbing to the top will throw myself off / In an effort to make it clear to whoever what it's like when you're shattered.” By the second verse, he’s losing his religion, responding to talk of God and his mercy with “If he really does exist / Why did he desert me / In my hour of need / I truly am indeed / Alone again, naturally.”

Taylor Swift, 'Blank Space'

“Love only hurts if you let it” would appear to be the lesson Swift is hoping to impart here, bringing a powerful cocktail of vulnerability and bravado to the table on a song about trying to be as immune to real emotion as the “long list of ex-lovers” that led her to believe that “boys only want love if it’s torture.” But it's clear that she’s not buying half of what she’s selling by the time she hits the song’s most vulnerable lyric: “You can tell me when it's over if the high was worth the pain.” And something tells me you already know the honest answer.

The Beatles, 'For No One'

This is one of Paul McCartney’s finest sets of lyrics, from that heartbreaking line in the opening verse (“You find that all her words of kindness linger on when she no longer needs you”) to the chorus where he sings, “And in her eyes you see nothing / No sign of love behind the tears cried for no one / A love that should have lasted years.” Of course, there is one aspect of that love may end up lasting forever. As McCartney sings, “There will be time when all the thing she said will fill your head / You won’t forget her.”

Big Star, 'Feel'

There's so much heartache in this song, especially on the chorus hook, in which Chris Bell pulls back from wailing the lyrics about a woman he says is "driving me to ruin" for a vulnerable delivery, underscored by aching harmonies, of "I I feel like I'm dying / I'm never gonna live again / You just ain't been trying / It's getting very near the end."

Amy Winehouse, 'Love is a Losing Game'

Winehouse wrote this melancholy torch song, which Prince took to covering live, but it sounds like a much older classic, recalling the soulful sophistication of "Dusty in Memphis" as her aching vocal wraps itself around a gorgeous melody, sighing "Love is a losing game / One I wish I never played / Oh what a mess we made / And now the final frame / Love is a losing game.”

Kanye West, 'Heartless'

He promises the coldest story ever told and delivers a solid contender, Auto-Tune making his vocal sound colder and less human than it would if he'd just sung it in his own voice. "Somewhere far along this road," he sings, "he lost his soul to a woman so heartless / How could you be so heartless?" The mix of bravado and hurt is brilliant when he undercuts "You got a new friend / Well, I got homies" with "But in the end it's still so lonely."

Jhene Aiko, 'The Worst'

Aiko's aching vocal is the perfect instrument to put across the bittersweet emotions of this sleek, sophisticated soul gem, cracking in all the right places as she makes her way from telling him "Don't take this personal but you are the worst" to a trembling chorus hook that insists "I don't need you" four times before admitting "But I want you." Then, after nearly three minutes, she starts rapping, investing her rhymes with the vulnerability that made that first verse so effective, setting the tone with "Everybody's like 'He's no item / Please don't like him / He don't wife 'em / He one-nights 'em."

Pouty, 'Sad'

Rachel Gagliardi effortlessly lives up to the pathos of the title here, setting the tone with a sad-girl pout of “Our lives as we know it will never be the same / How many times will you ask me not to feel this way?” The fuzz guitars and feedback kick in on the chorus to accompany her sigh of “All I ever wanted is disappearing now” before retreating for the verses, the whisper-to-a-scream dynamics of the ‘90s played for maximum impact, especially when the feedback kicks in on the quiet part as Galiardi snarls, “How many time will I tell you I feel sad today?”

Solange, 'Losing You'

A slinky electro-funk jam with Afrobeat percussion and a loop that keeps bringing you back to what sounds like a squeal of delight, this single does a brilliant job of juxtaposing the feel of the funkiest party in town with the downbeat soul of a heartbreaking vocal. “Tell me the truth, boy, am I losing you for good?” Solange asks. “We used to kiss all night but now there’s just no use.” The groove is undeniable, especially the bass line. But the way Solange undermines that groove with sadness is what elevates this single, which she co-wrote with Dev Hynes, to a soulful electro-funk classic.

Aretha Franklin, 'Good To Me As I Am To You'

The Queen of Soul is sick of doing everything to please her man and getting precious little in the way of R-E-S-P-E-C-T on this heartbreaking soul ballad. It starts with her wondering, “If you had a dollar and I had a dime / I wonder, could I borrow yours as easy as you could mine?” It wouldn’t be much of a song if she could. They’re still together for now but it’s clear that she run out of patience by the time she wails the line, “Some people want but they don't want to give / They can do all of the wrong in the world / And got the nerve to not understand the meaning of loving me,” which she follow with the even more intensely soulful “Starting today, tomorrow and forevermore / If you can't find it in your heart to do for me / Then, baby, just don't darken my front door.”

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Twitter.com/EdMasley.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Best breakup songs: An Anti-Valentine's Day heartbreak playlist