WMUC’s Broken Hearts Club: A Valentine’s Day Special

Dear Cupid, all respect to you, your craft, and your round-the-year work, but please if we have to play “Nobody” by Mitski on repeat and view our latest heartbreak as if it’s the season finale to the worst teen drama ever to metaphorically find closure... we will LOSE it.

Anyways, since you ‘love love’ or whatever, here’s a couple songs and stories from moments where we could’ve used a lil more (but, we know, we know.. we’ll take that up with HR). We hope you enjoy (even though God knows we didn’t). Love, WMUC

We never were official and I think that’s what hurt the most. That I didn't have a reason, "or the right," to be upset by our goodbye. You never told me you'd call. But I hoped for it just the same. Now, I'm stuck with what-ifs and daydreams of what could have been, and when I'm shopping at Lidl, or Target Express, I look for you in the aisles. But you're not there. My hopes have gray ends.

"Nomoah" fell out of my Discover Weekly in May (a beacon of light in an otherwise disappointing cycle), but it wasn't until a month or two later that I harnessed enough energy to start lying to myself again. It was me and Indigo, Indigo and me, taking turns at the karaoke machine in my mind singing, "youaint. rly. onmy. mind. nomoahhhhhh." Retrospective spoiler alert? He was. But, he's not anymoahhhhhh.

All of my friends that have had to cry in their cars or go on late night drives by themselves have gotten through breakups by blasting this song.

I want to make it clear that the guy who ruined this song for me was absolutely, never-ever anything more than a hookup. There were so many things that were just so fundamentally wrong with him, most of which I learned about on an ill-fated night spent at his apartment. I met him outside of his building, after (rather impressively) deciphering his drunken directions. Once I was there, it took just the 30 second elevator ride up to his apartment for me to decide that I was definitely too sober for this experience.

This one goes out to all of the friendships I've lost along the way. While it might've not been forever, it was good while it lasted.

As with Sita, Tamar, and Emma of Normandy, reigning reina of Spanish pop, Rosalía, metaphorically self-immolates on this track in a final test of her former lover's character. But, unlike her mythological predecessors, Rosalía wastes no time proving her self-worth and purity to the world. "Dolerme" challenges an abusive ex to watch powerlessly—no flinching—as she drives her life into the ground: fast, dirty, and painful; but out of his control.

It's her way of reclaiming the power dynamics of a bad relationship, and does she deliver it. The heavy, compressed, grinding production is the musical equivalent of firewood snapping and crackling into a towering, roaring bonfire. And, trust, you will find Rosalía and I vibing somewhere inside it.

Once upstairs, I looked in the fridge, hoping to find some type of chilled, delicious alcohol to help me out. Unfortunately, it's only contents were:

1. Three brown bananas


2. One opened bag of baby carrots


3. Five limes


4. Assorted condiments

This was a bit surprising, since he had previously bragged to me about how healthy he ate and how much pineapple juice he drank on a daily basis. The limes did pair well with my multiple shots of tequila, though.

Like this blurb, my crush on you was as trivial and flippant as a joke, but on that one night at that comedy party, maybe it stopped being a joke for a moment.

"The neon lights shaking in the early morning air/I’m standing here alone."

You never had good taste in music. The year I knew you, I'd slip songs into our vernacular, thinking in a way that they'd rub off on you. It wouldn't be until the month before I graduated that I admitted to my friend in the media center, "I'm like... 75% sure I like him." Selenerrr dropped this MV after the last day of school for seniors, but I kept visiting even when I didn't have to. In the dimly-lit biology classroom, I pulled you aside before the bell rang and played you this video, hoping somehow that you'd understand when I listened to this song, I was thinking of you.

The queer dating scene in DC sucks. Listen to this song before and after you go to your 2022 post-COVID white parties, and remember that you don't have to be attracted to anyone just because they work at Deloitte and have a gym subscription. What's hotter than being single? Being single, self-confident, and self-aware.

(owning a pack or two of the Chromatica Oreos doesn't hurt, either)

After this we went to his room, which had no mirror in it because he is “not a girl” and doesn’t “need to look at [him]self all the time”. This made me, once again, strongly question my decision to spend my night here, but it was too late now. At this point, “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals was blasting on a portable speaker while we stumbled into bed. That’s when I saw the blood. Yes, the blood.

There was a decently sized (maybe a bit larger than a quarter) crusty blood stain on his sheets right next to his singular pillow. Our conversation went a little something like this:

ME: Is that a blood stain on your bed?
HIM: Oh. Yeah. Maybe.
ME: Why is there a blood stain on your bed?
HIM: I get nosebleeds sometimes.
ME: You should probably wash your sheets when that happens.
HIM: Why are you making such a big deal about this? It’s just a little blood.

So now every time I hear this song I think about bloody sheets and shitty men.

Do I really have to explain why this one belongs?

This song captures perfectly how it feels to not only experience unrequited love, but also how it feels to carry that when you're not straight. Not only are you experiencing this undying longing for someone that is so heavy it feels like a form of worship or a one person cult, but you’re also carrying the weight of an "unrequited love" of sorts with your own religion due to what has been long-described as wrong.

In my experience, it was like, I not only lost this person who I had so much love for, but it also felt like I couldn't turn to religion because of how I had been told the way I felt was wrong.

Coming straight off seven straight college rejections in a row, freshman-year-fall-semester-me reluctantly braved my fears of falling off the bed to take top bunk, stuck my phone to the wall under slabs of blue painter's tape, and told anyone who would listen I was planning on transferring to BU next fall (spoiler alert: I didn't).

That first semester was spent stretching my skin across the social lounge trying to figure out who I was when it seemed all I'd once defined myself by had been crammed into some storage closet a million miles away (it'd be more accurate to say 17). I threw myself in between elevator doors in vain as everyone fell into place around me.

Before bed, I played this song once through in the room I shared with two other girls, wishing I could've played it on repeat, mishearing Will Joseph Cook's pre-chorus to read: "It's a lot, lot, lot," and proving to no one in particular that you don't need anyone else to break your own heart but yourself.

Quarantine loneliness mixed with not going to concerts in like, a year. Also not having much of a social life anymore. :(

Terrible, dramatic, exaggerated, grotesque, disastrous, INSIDIOUS [sob emoji] sequence of falling-domino-shxt-i-stepped-on-a-lego-but-make-that-times-seven events from late March to early June played out to the backdrop of a burgeoning pandemic (or is it the other way around??). One after another, I watched standing pillars of the collegiate life, that once spilled out of my camera roll with so much love it made my cheeks hurt for days after, crumble in slow motion. In the rubble, you'd find deleted tweets and unread texts mounting around just another girl with Sky Ferreira on repeat. What else could I say but, "I blame myself"?

This song brings me back to such a distinct memory of heartbreak. I’d reconnected with someone I had an odd history with (it had all fallen apart and lead to extreme heartbreak).It was the night before the first day of the Fall 2020 semester and a friend had made a comment about the situation that hurt me a lot. I was just attempting to act like I was fine but I wasn't.

Later that night, I went on a walk around campus to clear my head and shuffled Ungodly Hour by Chloe x Halle. When this song came on I completely lost it. I love this song and this entire album so much, and I think it's an amazing heartbreak song.

In response to the other blurb, though off-theme: this is my friendship LOVE song. <33

This song is on a playlist I made about an old friend. It's so angry and I love it. We were friends for about 4 years during high school. We would mostly talk during school, but when we hung out outside of school, it would be for hours and we’d have deep discussions I didn’t feel like I could ever have with anyone else judgment-free. He was someone who I really trusted before he crossed me. I asked for an apology, but he only made it worse so then I cut him off.

Long story short, “Rats in a Bucket” is what I listen to when I'm mad at him and myself for being friends with him. My fave lines are, "All the red flags and warning signs/ Flying so flagrantly and obvious in hindsight/ Now I see them miles away," because almost everyone warned me about him but I didn’t listen because I thought I knew the real him. Turns out I didn’t! So now I cope with my ignorance by blasting loud music and writing poems.

Is the rebound the worst part of the breakup? Montreal's Ariane Roy might agree. "Tu pars" is the intricately poetic French-language ballad for all of the WMUC-listening loners out there that have plenty of lovers, but are missing the one person they love.

I always think it's so interesting hearing people's go-to cry songs because while there are some obvious classics, there are also some interesting ones that you wouldn't expect. This beautiful cover of the song doesn't make me emotional because of the backstory (Vanessa Hudgens sang this song the day her dad passed away), but it's just an emotional song.

I have such a distinct memory of crying in the bathroom one summer night while listening to this song for some reason unknown to me to this day. I think the message behind the song of being misunderstood no matter what can speak to every person, because not everyone is understood by everyone.

The end of a relationship doesn't have to necessarily tear you up inside. Three years ago, in the middle of summer, I was biking through Old Town Alexandria listening to this song when I got the "we need to talk" text from my first boyfriend after hitting the 1.5 year mark with him. Spotify Discover really blessed me on that day, because this song totally put me at ease about it. If neither partners are really feeling the relationship, why stretch it out? It's out of your hands. Sometimes it brings better closure to tie things shut at their natural conclusion.

This song is the heartbreak anthem for everyone that's fallen madly in love with their barista, neighborhood dog walker, Costco cashier, apartment receptionist, etc., slowly building up the courage to ask them out—only to find they've lost their jobs due to COVID and have moved to Alaska to start an organic elderflower farm. Sometimes the strongest attraction we've ever felt is directed towards total strangers. Their names might not stick with us, but the feelings do.

When you think you're cool with someone and it turns out that they treat you like a disposable camera!

My heart wasn't broken, but according to urban legend, three others allegedly were. This was the summer of going rogue on Facebook Messenger, steadfastly volunteering at the rink by day, and attending an SAT prep course by night, each activity coming with a complimentary suitor (though I didn't come to realize it until years later).

I still remember Rink Fling skating up to me as this song blared on the speakers. "I hate this song." "I love it." Smiling as I slid away because I knew everything I'd ever wanted, I already had.

This is the ultimate heartbreak song. When I feel down and alone but I wanna dance like a wacky-waving-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube man but still be sad, I put this song on. Ninety-nine percent of Mitski's discography is great heartbreak songs, but to me this is the pinnacle of heartbreak.

Sometimes dating your close friends works out. Usually, it's awkward as hell. The cross-album Andy Shauf trilogy of The Party, The Neon Skyline, and Judy/Jeremy's Wedding present an odyssey of rural Canadian self-deprecation as Shauf navigates all of the most uncomfortable moments of his relationships with his bar buddies (Judy and Jeremy) with remarkable clarity and candor. Unsurprising spoiler: they get married to each other, and invite him to watch the ceremony. And that's on WMUC Heartbreak Blurbs.

Listen to all these songs and more in this playlist! From our heartbreaks to yours.