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Best Break-Up Songs: 16 Tunes Celebrating Saying Sayonara

Unhappy Valentine's Day: 16 Best Break-up Songs
Alamy

If being an active, professional listener of music has taught me anything, it's that there is no worse crime you can commit than to break up with someone who still has feelings for you. The musical landscape is filled with endless, angry ballads against partners who have walked out on their faithful lovers and plaintive pieces about the recently dumped withering away in loneliness. The one who leaves is always the villain in these songs, the object of adoration who also becomes the instrument of one's personal destruction.

Those who do the leaving tend to come off rather poorly in songs written by those who are left behind. So, for this particular list of breakup songs, I wanted to focus on songs that speak from — and even celebrate — the position of the person who is doing the heartbreaking.

The Dumper.

It can be devastating to end a relationship, weighing the cost of staying versus leaving, agonizing over the decision and finally delivering a crushing blow to someone you (once) care(d) about... whatever.

So, just in time for Valentine's Day, here's a collection of songs for all you heartbreakers out there:

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