Learning about love by listening to love songs is a laughable notion. I would argue, however, that certain songs, breakup duets, where a lover and a beloved each get to sing from their separate viewpoints, can be instructive cases for exploring certain questions about love. With this theory in mind, I contacted Frederick Woolverton, an experienced couples therapist, to help me interpret breakup duets from across the pop spectrum and to see what light they might shed on relationships. What follows are selected lyrics from the breakup duets that Woolverton and I discussed. His commentary is in italics.
1. The Pogues, “Fairytale of New York” (1988)
[Written by Shane MacGowan and Jem Finer; sung by Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl]
KM: You’re a bum
You’re a punkSM: You’re an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bedKM: You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it’s our lastSM: I could have been someone
KM: Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found youSM: I kept them with me, babe
I put them with my own
Can’t make it all alone
I’ve built my dreams around you
This is a description of classic codependency in a relationship. It reminds me of a Beckett play where the bond between two people is forged by mutual hatred and scorn rather than respect and love. It’s the result of years of disappointed expectations. The psychoanalyst Harold Boris once wrote an essay called “On Hope,” where he says that hope is toxic. Hope totally ignores what happens in the present and focuses on one’s life in the future. Embedded is the hope that someday in the future, the other person will come through, which makes the pathological bond in the present justifiable, because neither party wants to give up what could happen in the future, so the bond is inextricable. They’re saying, “I am nobody without you; all I have is my hatred of you. The future could be better, so let’s keep hope alive.” It’s amazing how many relationships are based on that premise.
2. The Human League, “Don’t You Want Me” (1981)
[Written by Philip Oakey; sung by Philip Oakey and Susanne Sulley or Joanne Catherall]
PO: You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar
When I met you
I picked you out, I shook you up
And turned you around
Turned you into someone new
Now five years later on you’ve got the world at
your feet
Success has been so easy for you
But don’t forget
It’s me who put you...
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