It’s never easy to wrestle with the grief and frustration of a relationship coming to an end. Whether it’s realising that your partner no longer loves you, or if you’re the one instigating the breakup, it almost always leads to someone getting hurt. By turns distraught and jaded, songwriters throughout the ages have found countless ways to channel their pain and turn fraught emotions into timeless songs that see the writing on the wall and capture the heart-wrenching loneliness and resignation that can come with it. Here, then, emerging from the ashes of many failed relationships, are our ten best breakup songs…
Best Breakup Songs: 10 Classics For The Broken-Hearted
10: Coldplay: The Scientist (from ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’, 2002)
Reaching No.10 in the UK in November 2002, Coldplay’s evocative piano ballad The Scientist tells the story of a man of science who ponders life’s big questions but is mystified when it comes to heartbreak. “It’s weird that whatever else is on your mind, whether it’s the downfall of global economics or terrible environmental troubles, the thing that always gets you most is when you fancy someone,” frontman Chris Martin admitted. As one of the best breakup songs of the 2000s, The Scientist sold 1.2 million copies in the UK and captured the disconsolate melancholy at the heart of many of the best Coldplay songs (“Nobody said it was easy/It’s such a shame for us to part”).