For You To Weep and Wonder

the rare perfection of a break up album

During the summer of 2006 I spent a lot of time lying on a very comfortable sofa on my friend Lisa’s back porch, slightly drunk and listening to Neko Case’s album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.

I’d broken up with my partner of eight years and moved promptly into Lisa’s house. I was manic and messy and completely untethered and Lisa, who had literally just given birth to her second child, graciously put up with me for months until I found a new apartment. (For that she deserves a friendship medal.) When you are heartbroken and confused, music is always a blessing, but nothing is as welcome as a perfect break up album. No making of mixes and playlists comprising an assortment of break up songs. Just one long album that you can listen to as the sun sets, reclining on an outdoor sofa, sipping Creemore Springs Premium Lager.

Fox Confessor, like the rest of Case’s astonishingly brilliant catalog, is dark and moody with poetic lyrics that occasionally break away to reveal a sentence or two of earnest yearning. As I started experimenting with going out again and making eyes at new people, the lyric “I leave the party and 3 AM/ alone, thank god,” became one of my favourites. It was a relief to be alone in any context at that point, having struggled with my newly defunct relationship for a while prior to its end. When I started to feel more hopeful, the song “That Teenage Feeling” was always in my head, with Case singing about a friend who’d declared “I don’t care, if forever never comes/ ‘cause I’m holding out for the teenage feeling”. There were also nights spent adventuring into new venues to see bands and dance with attractive acquaintances where Case’s mournful wail of the opening lyrics of “Hold On, Hold On” (“The most tender place in the heart is for strangers”) felt especially poignant.

I guess my taste in break up albums rests in the tough-ladies-of-country-music genre because the only other time I remember having a full, start-to-finish album that I associated with a break up was when I left an awful boyfriend in 1999 and listened only to Car Wheels on a Gravel Road by Lucinda Williams for months on end. I’d just moved to Ottawa and lived in a one bedroom apartment that got no direct sunlight. I bought records up the street at Organized Sound, and then played them in my quiet lonely apartment, lying on the hardwood floor.

Like Case, Williams’ record is tough, dark, and vulnerable. A real heartbreaking collection of songs. Not all of the songs on this one are directly applicable for a break up, in fact the first song “Right in Time” seems to be about feeling good in a relationship. But that didn’t matter to me. The positive songs allowed me to wallow in “maybe I made a mistake” and the desperately sad and/or snarly ones (“I Lost it”, “Joy”, “Still I Long For Your Kiss”) allowed me to wallow. The song on the album that was my painful favourite though, was always “Greenville.” With lyrics like “Don’t want to see you again, or hold your hand/ ‘Cause you don’t really love me, you’re not my man” the song was the highlight of the record for me, setting the tone for everything I was feeling.

The beauty of a full break up album is that, unlike a mix of break up songs that embody one particular way of feeling, an album accompanies you for the ebb and flow of break up emotions. Sure, I love the Ergs! song “Running, Jumping, Standing Still” and “Wish You Were Beer” by Benny and the Jet Rodriguez and “Pressure to Party” by Julia Jacklin but those particular break up songs, perfect as they might be, each only tell one part of the long story that accompanies any break up. Fox Confessor and Car Wheels both gave me room to move - or not move- within the misery of a break up, allowing for a vast array of emotions to play out. I’m grateful to both records for helping me come out the other side of some bad situations.

If you have a favourite break up album (or song) I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

June 2024 - Songs

Post 2006 break up, as I re-entered the dating scene I listened to a lot of Pony Up! especially the song “Shut Up and Kiss Me” which is, uh, blunt in its intentions. (And whyyyyyyy is their album Make Love to the Judges With Your Eyes not on streaming services. Why??)

Oh, so we’re discussing Back-On-The-Scene songs? Well then we must mention “Nowhere With You” by yet another Canadian, Joel Plaskett.

And, of course, there’s this wholesomely horny gem from The Maynards (Even! More! Canadians!) “Break Out the Make Out”.

June 2024 - Feelings

I read Kathleen Hanna’s memoir, Rebel Girl, in a giant gulp of obsessive page turning and then loaned it to several friends who read it just a quickly. If you, like me, loved Bikini Kill and Julie Ruin and Le Tigre and had only a patchy understanding of Hanna’s origin story and timeline, this will be a very satisfying read. And though much of it details traumatic and serious events, it must be said that the story of her romance and long standing partnership with Adam Horovitz is a very sweet love story for those of you (us) who like that sort of thing.

I have been reading Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books to my kids for months now. There are so many and each one has its own magic. I can not believe how well these books hold up to modern re-reading. So far I haven’t had to skip over any random racism, outdated references are few and far between, and the portrayal of what it is like to be a kid in a big confusing world run by tired adults could not be more real. Reading as a parent, I appreciate the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Quimby more than I ever did when I read these books as a kid. Ramona’s parents are loving and fun, but also tired and cranky at times. They worry about money, squabble with each other, make fun of their kids, and try admirably hard to keep it all together. Good work, Quimbys.

Thanks for reading! See you next month.

J.W.

Instagram : @JenniferWhitefordWrites

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