To bastardise the words of the famed hack sapsmith Neil Sedaka, breaking up is hard to do, but peculiarly easy to write about. Just seven months after his last album, Mark “E” Everett — working under his trading name Eels — is back with an autobiographical suite addressing the dissolution of his relationship. “The twinkle in your eye is gone/ And now all that’s left is a mean old girl,” runs Unhinged, in what amounts to one of the colder observations on End Times. Several songwriters have lured out goosebumps by capturing the moment that love dies. Famously, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil did it with the opening line of You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling: “You never close your eyes any more when I kiss your lips.” Some break-up songs sound bereaved (The Go-Betweens’ Dive For Your Memory), while others sound as uncomprehending in their sorrow as a wounded animal (The Czars’ Paint the Moon — YouTube it). A great break-up song is no mean achievement, but — as with Eels — when the words begin to pour forth and cease to abate until 12 songs have been written, it’s hard not to marvel at the results with a perverse awe. Especially when the results comprise ten break-up albums of this vintage . . .
1 Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks (1975) The mother of all post-relationship albums. “The songs are my parents talking,” said son Jakob later. Those must’ve been some conversations for a child to hear. Famously, on Idiot Wind the singer trills of Sara Dylan: “You’re an idiot, babe/ It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.”
2 Noah and the Whale: The First Days of Spring (2009) Titles such as I Have Nothing and My Broken Heart compelled you to feel sorry for Charlie Fink — though not as sorry as you felt for his bandmate-turned-solo artist Laura Marling, the subject of his no-longer-requited outpourings.
3 Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (1977) John was splitting with Christine. Lindsey was splitting with Stevie. Stevie was seeing Mick. If they hadn’t written an album to formalise their sleeping arrangements, there is every chance that, once you factored in the drugs, they would have forgotten them.
4 Lee Hazlewood: Requiem for an Almost Lady (1971) The man who wrote These Boots Are Made for Walking decamped to Sweden in the 1970s, making cruelly overlooked albums. In trying to discern meaning from a dying relationship, this one yielded gems such as If It’s Monday Morning.
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5 Elbow: Leaders of the Free World (2006) Before settling down with Editors’ Tom Smith, Edith Bowman broke Guy Garvey’s heart. The fallout is chronicled with painstaking beauty on Elbow’s third album. On My Very Best, trying to keep a stiff upper lip, he sings, “And would you tell her/ I’m from a long line of survivors.”
6 Richard and Linda Thompson: Shoot Out the Lights (1982) On the release of this album Thompson told his wife that he was seeing another woman. During the ensuing shows, Linda vented her rage by hitting Richard with a bottle and winding up in prison after stealing a car.
7 Blur: 13 (1999) Damon Albarn’s first album after his split with Justine Frischmann was hailed for its bravery. Tender was rather beautiful, but you did feel that when the other three were singing, “Come on, come on, come on/ Get through it”, they might have been referring to the rest of the album.
8 Mark Olson: The Salvation Blues (2007) Nine years after marrying Victoria Williams, Olson ran over her dog by accident, and couldn’t bring himself to tell her. The resulting strain, he said, stripped him of all rationality. He sought succour in the arms of an ex-lover. Williams found out. Thirteen songs later, this was the result.
9 Marvin Gaye: Here, My Dear (1978) In 1976, Marvin Gaye was ordered by a judge to hand over half the royalties of his next album to his estranged wife Anna Gordy. In the resulting record Gaye channelled his feelings into some of the most affecting performances of his life.
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10 Bruce Springsteen: Tunnel of Love (1987) Coincided with Springsteen’s marriage collapse with Julianne Phillips and a new relationship with Patty Scialfa; sombre of mood, it’s the work of a man who can hardly see the bridleway of true love for what the horses have left on it.