Only Songs Can Break Your Heart
Today NY Post profiles Ruinedmusic.com, a place "to talk about the music you’ve lost: the songs you can’t stand to hear ever again, that record she always played when she was over at your house, the band you went to see together a week before he called it quits, That Song that was on That Mix, the record that was playing the night you (fill in the blank), the album you got for a Valentine’s Day gift."
The Post asked for some celebrity submissions. Here are their stories:
"Just Like Heaven" submitted by Moby
"In 1994, I was living with my girlfriend at the time. We were out one night and we heard 'Just Like Heaven' by the Cure, and she drunkenly mentioned that this had been the song that was playing when she first met the boyfriend whom she had been with before me. So whenever I've heard this song I've thought of the good times, which were invariably better than the times that she and I had together, that she had with her ex-boyfriend. It's a beautiful song, and it kills me that it's been ruined for me for 12 years.""Silence Kit" submitted by Gabe Saporta of Cobra Starship
"When I was 16 and in high school, my girlfriend and I thought (like every other couple in high school - surprise, surprise) we were the modern-day Romeo and Juliet because our families didn't want us dating. We always related to Pavement's song 'Silence Kit' and the line '. . . don't listen to your grandmother's advice about us.' This song became our motivation and salvation. Then we went to college and never spoke again."
"The Tide Is High" submitted by Damian Kulash of OK Go "Blondie's 'The Tide Is High' was ruined by a single kiss. I was 13, and she was perfect in every way, as 13-year-old girls tended to be at the time. I had spent an eternity, possibly my entire life up to that point, plotting and planning my approach; I schemed and angled and carefully wrestled with the awkward geometry of courtship until we miraculously wound up in the darkened hall outside the school dance. Even muffled by the doors, the bouncing optimism of Blondie was soaring and anthemic, the perfect soundtrack for the universe to converge on this glorious moment. And then I kissed her, and she tasted of spoiled milk. My pubescent world imploded, and the song has never been the same."Your turn...Irish Music In General submitted by Andrew Bird
"I used to play violin in Renaissance fairs every weekend when I was 19 and 20, and my job was to walk around in a floppy hat, pantaloons, a blousey shirt and some Vans that I had to spray-paint black. One day they decided I had too much freedom so they gave me a little Post-it Note that said, 'Privy Lines: 2 o'clock,' and insisted that I play Irish jigs and reels for two hours for all these Dungeon & Dragon enthusiasts waiting in line for the bathroom. I was fairly into Irish music at the time, but it kind of ruined it for me after that. Then I got tendinitis and was in a lot of pain."
Posted at 11:04 AM
Tags: Pavement
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Thanks to the that ultimate douche in Cobra Starship
I can never listen to Pavement again
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I can't get into particulars but this crazy ex ruined Pocahontas by Neil Young. Every time I hear that song my skin crawls. Stupid -----
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"The One Thing" by INXS... granted it's not the greatest song, but it WAS my favorite song (that wasn't by Prince) when I was 14.
But that was all ruined a year or two later when I discovered a video tape of MY MOTHER STRIPPING TO THE SONG.
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"But that was all ruined a year or two later when I discovered a video tape of MY MOTHER STRIPPING TO THE SONG."
holy shit, best post ever
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I also hate "The Tide is High". Once I was on a roadtrip and for about 7 hours I was stuck in the "loser" car no one wanted to be in.
It was an obligation, though because we all had our turns, but it sucked because this lame girl was driving and she kept talking really loudly about her relationships and cross-analyzing them in excruciating detail. She also was trying to make bets with all of us so that we would have to "make [her] nachos" when we got to Coachella. Then she would say "NA-CHOS, MMM, MUY CAL-I-EN-TE!!" and other racist things that sounded Spanish and had nothing to do with nachos.
"The Tide is High" came on the iPod shuffle and she sang along the whole time, in a nauseating Broadway-baby voice that she thought sounded REALLY GOOD.
I can't take that vocal melody anymore. Cannot.
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"I Feel Good"
I love James Brown, but anytime you see a trailer for a crap movie with an animal as a main character, they bust into that song.
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Portishead's "Dummy". Gone forever.
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dont ever put songs you love on a mix cd for a girl you really like but might later on really dislike (or at the very least, might not wanted to be reminded of). its like signing away your rights to enjoy the contents of the cd ever again.
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dont ever put songs you love on a mix cd for a girl you really like but might later on really dislike (or at the very least, might not wanted to be reminded of). its like signing away your rights to enjoy the contents of the cd ever again.
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My ex ruined Peter Murphy's entire discography, as well as Depeche Mode.
Managed to save Love & Rockets from her, though.
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the "quiet is the new loud" album by kings of convenience. i cannot listen to that accursed thing without being magically transported to this particular afternoon/evening in another country with this beautiful girl. that part is okay actually, but then there was the ensuing three years during which time we tore each others' hearts to shreds again and again. sigh.
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she lists all the bands i introduced her to under 'favorite music' on her friendster profile. and we havent spoken in two years. kinda stings.
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'i wanna be adored' by stone roses
'autumn sweater' by yo la tengo
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How to destroy Wouldn't It Be Nice in 2 easy steps:
1. Keep Pet Sounds in constant rotation during a happy 3 year relationship.
2. Blatantly sleep with girlfriend's little sister during an "off" period.
Bonus Points
Ensure sister is currently dating your bass player.
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"she lists all the bands i introduced her to under 'favorite music' on her friendster profile. and we havent spoken in two years. kinda stings."
i had the same thing happen! this girl listened to shit like my chem before she met me. now her myspace profile proclaims how much she loves "undiscovered" bands like the decemberists, headphones, etc. gut wrenching.
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New Order's True Faith. It was playing during a like-you-as-a-friend speech. Now that song makes my skin crawl. But at least my mom wasn't stripping to it.
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scissor sisters- comfortably numb. for some stupid reason this song was playing in my girlfriends car as we got in our last fight... last because it led to the eventual "i never want to see you again," kind of statement. no more disco covers of pink floyd for me...
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Queen
"Save Me"
The sound track to my first (horribly traumatic as in I don't drive anymore) car accident.
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Hey Scott, thanks for posting this! And anyone with a good story about a ruined song... check the website and submissions guidelines for, you know, guidelines, and then send 'em along.
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Guys, this is why it's smart to date girls who listen to acts like Ashlee Simpson and the Black Eyed Peas exclusively. This never ruins your good music. I haven't associated one good song/album with a girl in my life.
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Mama You Been On My Mind
& just about anything by Tom Waits. i'll still listen to the hell out of him, but its torturous.
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Sigur Ros, "Svefn-G-Englar"
After a particularly bad breakup I listened to this song nonstop for an entire week, and now I can't ever listen to it again.
Also:
U2, "The Joshua Tree" (entire album)
My college roommate and I liked listening to music as we fell asleep, and for whatever reason this CD filled up most of our junior year.
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Don't know if I would say ruined but I do have and extremely difficult time listening to "My Generation" by Generation X. I stupidly lit myself on fire as an art project. Weird surreal experience. Everytime I hear that song I am reminded of the pain and seriously wonder why I and my friends thought this would be such a great idea - - and I cringe.
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"Thanks to the that ultimate douche in Cobra Starship I can never listen to Pavement again"
whachu mean?
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Jervo, your Sigur Ros story is reminding me of that episode of 90210 in which Brenda plays "Losing My Religion" on a loop after breaking up with Brandon! I so wish that was on YouTube right now.
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This wasn't a romantic relationship, and it's actually nice to have something that reminds me of her, but for some reason I rememeber hanging out with a good friend in her dorm room with a bunch of people one night our freshman year, and she asked someone to put on "Just What I Needed" by the Cars. She died two years ago, and I always think of her and tear up a little when I hear it. Especially the part that goes "it's not the perfume that you wear/it's not the ribbons in your hair."
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"fool in the rain." led zeppelin.
awkward, awkward loss of virginity to that one.
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The entire Dismemeberment Plan catalogue (that I had the one to bless his life with) thrown away in exchange for four months of long meaningful drives.
Bands are more important than boys.
That was pretty freaking emo of me.
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The Clash's London Calling album has been ruined for me. . .I'll never forgive that asshole for that.
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PS: I am officially in love with Andrew Bird. . that solidifies it.
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brenda broke up with brandon??? ermmm...i hope not
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hate to say this, but the decemberists "los angeles, i'm yours."
he learned how to play it on the guitar after i put it on a mix cd for him. why do i even bother making mix cds anymore? he had a polka cd in his car, for chrissakes!
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for every song ive ever had ruined because of a girl, its only strengthened my connection to 'somebody that i used to know' by elliott smith...and also most every song he wrote but especially that one
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Sigur ROs (),
I was at the dentist getting a cavity filled. He asked if I had any music I wanted to listen to because they had headphones and cd players. "Wow, thats cool. This wont be so bad." I thought.
Then he gassed the shit out of me.
Next came the gas induced terror....
I was certain I was going to die. () and the high-pitched dental drill were the soundtrack of my death.
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RE that INXS story with the mom stripping...replace INXS with Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon, and stripping with coming home early to find your parents hosting a "clothing optional" pool party. The sound of all those clocks ringing at the beginning of "Time" makes my skin crawl.
And I think everyone has had an ex steal some of their favorite bands for listing on myspace, but I made the mistake of reading one of those survey things on myspace that my ex filled out. One of the questions was "favorite bands when you were in high school," and she listed MY favorite bands when I was in high school like the Velvet Underground, Crass, X, etc. When she was in High School, she was into drum'n'bass. She not only stole my current tastes, but my past ones as well.
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Radiohead - Let Down
I listened to it about 15 times on a plane ride home, I just could not get enough of it, and then my parents met me as I got off to tell me my friends had died in a car wreck.
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Prince, "Do Me Baby"
Europe with girlfriend. Picked it as a great song to play in the background during the act. The eight minute version of course with at least two solid min utes of Prince moaning in heat. Cut to a week later. I in the states she in Europe. Drunk and stoned. Sex with a borderline harlot. Relationship gone. Do Me baby is forever associated with her and sex in Europe and then eventually the thoughts of what came a week later.
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'Are You Experienced' by Hendrix was the makeout music du jour among the guys I dated my freshman year of college... I didn't really care one way or the other about it until "the one" (or so I thought at 18) dumped me for a girl named Mary. Worst part? Next boy's favorite song ever was 'Wind Cries Mary'... so it'd get hot and heavy and then I'd start to cry mid-makeout. I still don't like Hendrix.
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My favorites have been mentioned above, but I'll add the one where Mr. Burns tries to woo Marge and kidnaps Tom Jones to win her over. Burns fails, but he still gets Tom to perform (at gunpoint) for Homer and Marge.
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I can't believe I'm going to admit this, but it's late and I'm a bit buzzed but there's a song called "Mrs. Perfect Girl" by a band called Weston from Philly and I can't listen to it. It was our song! Me and my high school girlfriend who broke my heart. Her name was Danielle. She was great. Bye.
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Nothing my love can't fix-Joey Lawrence...it was the summer of 92'...things were turbulent at home...and she walked away to add on to all of my problems....BITCH
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the album mezzanine from massive attack. my really annoying ex and i were making out in bed to the album and talking about how its the ultimate sex cd when she tells me "uh yeah i know, ive fucked so many times to this album
" butnot yet with me. eeewwww. i didnt know she was such a whore.
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I got picked up by a grad student when I was in college, and she was obsessed with the Barenaked Ladies. I was still a virgin, and had a big crush on a coworker of mine who was dating a friend, but I decided to try and get over her with the grad student.
So one thing leads to another, and I'm about to lose my virginity, but I was too nervous and too in love with the other girl that I just couldn't perform. It didn't help that she had just tearfully confessed to me that she had contracted genital warts years ago in a drunken one-night stand during her divorce.
And so the Barenaked Ladies are ruined for me forever. The worst part is, she once told me that I reminded her of one of the guys in the band, but I don't know which one. Was it the ugly one? The fat one? The passable one? Which one, dammit?!?
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Depressing: "One More Day" by Diamond Rio. This song came out right at the time my mom died of a massive stroke. That song was on every country/pop radio station all the time 6 years ago. I still can't listen to it without balling like a baby.
Relationship gone bad: Anything by "Sublime". I was with this guy for about 2 or so years. And that last year or so, all he would listen to is Sublime. Constantly. He would sit in front of the computer, surfing the net, listening to Sublime. Singing along. All day, all night. He couldn't take a shower or brush his teeth or put his dirty dishes in the sink (let alone wash some dishes). But, he had all the time in the world to sing along with Sublime.
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That Jerimiah was a Bullfrog song (Joy to The World).
It was playing on some AM radio station as a Hoda Citation I was in was flipping 4 times end over end and 7 times rolling over on the Highway while Joy to The World was blaring out of it's speakers.
GOOD TIMES
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Stroke It by Clarence Carter
Hello-who actually loses their religion to Stroke It? It was July 4th, 1997 and Friday Night 80's was bumpin...and so I was I. How embarrassing is it to tell anyone that Stroke It was "our song"? Oh, it's a doozy. As if the cliche isn't bad enough, the song also reminds me how EDDIE made a poor 16 year old girl think she was in love to only leave her on her first day of college three years later. Of course, we're all dumb at that age, but it still makes my stomach hurt to think of the stupidy that is attached to Stroke It. I stroke it the east...I stroke it to the west...makes me puke!
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Always Something there To remind me - by anyband that sings it.
i was dating this lovely, lovely girl. her name was Alison (after the Elvis Costello Song)
and well one day i was at Cici's Pizza, and i heard the song, and i was thinking that this would prolly be the song stuck in my head if she broke up with me.
well, went home, saw she called me, called back, no answer, weird.
checked email, saw i had an email from her, opened it.
broke up with me. felt my heart sink and blah blah blah.
a few seconds later..
"and there is always something there to remind me"
damn girls.
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My wife used to sing Nelly Furtado's "I'm like a bird--I'll only fly away" and Life House's "Hanging by a moment" which starts: "Desperate for changing, Starving for truth"
A couple months later I found out she was in love with her good friend's husband (I found the "love notes" looking for an envelope to pay a couple of the bills). She moved out and ended up marrying the dude and became a witch (Literally!). Go figure.
I'm better off now, but those damn songs crop up and I have to change the station...most of the time. Sometimes I sing them out loud in the car and laugh my ass off...good thereapy!
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My wife used to sing Nelly Furtado's "I'm like a bird--I'll only fly away" and Life House's "Hanging by a moment" which starts: "Desperate for changing, Starving for truth"
A couple months later I found out she was in love with her good friend's husband (I found the "love notes" looking for an envelope to pay a couple of the bills). She moved out and ended up marrying the dude and became a witch (Literally!). Go figure.
I'm better off now, but those damn songs crop up and I have to change the station...most of the time. Sometimes I sing them out loud in the car and laugh my ass off...good thereapy!
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i had to let go of a very close friendship today, or maybe it let go of me. it had probably been impending for a while but everything came to a head today and i'm pretty sure its dead and painfully so, and my understanding of what is was is now upside down. over the last year, i had introduced her to kate bush, elliott smith, jeff buckley, radiohead, arcade fire and ulrich schnauss -- each with a mix cd made personally for her, and made with her enjoyment in mind. and she loved them, every one of them. except maybe the last couple, which she probably didnt listen, and if she did she never told me about it, because at that point our friendship begun to wither. the point is, i'm pretty sure i wont be able to listen to any of those bands or artists for a long time, because it will only remind me of her, and i dont want to remember that she exists. its a shame. its great music, music that was important to me, and thats why i gave it to her, because she was important to me. and now im home on a friday night, writing the email to her that will effectively culminate our friendship, having cancelled a first date with a hot blonde long-legged exchange student b/c i couldnt bring myself to pretend to have fun. there is a silver lining though, in my relief for having not gotten around to giving her bowie, bjork or anything else. that's all still mine. i think i'm done giving people cd's.
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and thank god i didnt give her the smiths. i'd never forgive myself.
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He ruined all things Ani DiFranco. What right did that 27 year old lying, womanizing, drugged out, pseudo-hippie (i.e., wealthy parents but he pretended to balk at their wealth, even though they paid his rent) jerkface have to listen to Ani in the first place?? I loved her music then, and I still do, but it makes me throw up in my mouth a little whenever I hear her songs.
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Hated Staind before, hated them more after he dumped me. He loved them.
He also ruined Evanescence, but I think that would have happened eventually anyway.
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"dont ever put songs you love on a mix cd for a girl you really like but might later on really dislike (or at the very least, might not wanted to be reminded of). its like signing away your rights to enjoy the contents of the cd ever again."
you took the words right outta my mouth.
"she lists all the bands i introduced her to under 'favorite music' on her friendster profile. and we havent spoken in two years. kinda stings."
"i had the same thing happen! this girl listened to shit like my chem before she met me. now her myspace profile proclaims how much she loves "undiscovered" bands like the decemberists, headphones, etc. gut wrenching."
man it looks like i had a bad one... take like all of this and wrap it into one!
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