Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Republicans don’t trust women.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Tick tock motherfuckers!

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

“woke” is the new caravan.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Valentines Day

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Valentines Day

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In case you’re new to Medium Cool, BGinCHI is here once a week to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in.  We’re here at 7 pm on Sunday nights.

After enduring a crushing break-up on this very day–me standing there with flowers, the door shut in my face–I’ve never been able to warm up to its insidious compulsions.

So, in this week’s Medium Cool, let’s talk about heartbreak. In rock ‘n roll, country & western, rom-coms, tragedies, comedies, novels, pretty much everywhere in culture there are break-ups and let downs, divorces and betrayals. They might not make life pleasant, but they’re crucial material for a lot of art.

Tell us about your heartbreaks, your heartaches, your fool’s games, and maybe even you, standing in the cold rain.

 

Reader Interactions

102Comments

  6. 6.

    schrodingers_cat

    All the genres you mentioned have nothing on Hindi movie songs when it comes to heartbreak.
    Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar singing Gulzar’s poem set to music by R. D. Burman
    in the 1975 movie Aandhi (The storm) based loosely on Indira Gandhi. Onscreen Suchitra Sen and Sanjeev Kumar.

    Tere bina jindagi se ko shikva to nahin (No complaints about life without you)

    Tere bina jindagi bhi lekin zindagi nahin (But life without you is no life)

    Of all the people I mentioned on Gulzar (Sampurna Singh Kalra) lives. He was a refugee from Pakistan and is in his 90s.

  8. 8.

    Josie

    Went with a friend to see West Side Story, and one of the previews was for Peter Dinklage in Cyrano. How embarrassing – I expected to cry during the main show but not the preview as well.  A two tissue experience.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    The heck with Valentine’s Day. February 15th is chocolate 50% off day!

    This year, a real Fat Tuesday.

    :)

  17. 17.

    wkwv

    First major High School boyfriend dropped me for a redhead who had already graduated. Then he came by once every six weeks telling me how sweet I was and what a b–ch she was, just often enough to rip the wound open. Gone again until the next time. He dropped by my house on February 13th with a box of chocolates, ignoring my protests that I was getting over the flu and not wanting a visit. Man, was he over the top affectionate. After I peeled away, he told me all about how he and the redhead were getting married in her parent’s back garden on Valentines Day. I was unknowingly his Batchelor party and It only cost him a $6 box of See’s candy. I felt like a 16 year old divorcee. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=H–_-gPX3Nw . Forever is 18 months. Cosmic justice would be if they got the flu on their honeymoon :-<, but no such luck. Glad now I was rid of him.

  19. 19.

    UncleEbeneezer

    No great heartbreak stories of my own but I absolutely LOVE sappy songs about heartbreak.  The greatest ever, imo, is and will always be Crying by Roy Orbison.  It’s he absolute gold standard and pretty much a perfect pop song.

    Honorable mentions for Somebody’s Baby by Jackson Browne (also Tender Is The Night), Telephone Line by ELO, Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’ by Journey and I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues by Elton John.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    Songs of heartbreak

    One of the most delicate is Lyle Lovett, North Dakota

    A classic is Dionne Warwick singing Walk on By

    And then there is the great By the Time I Get to Phoenix

  28. 28.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @NotMax: That’s a whole other genre of bitter/angry break up songs.  Which officially peaked in 1995 with You Oughta Know by Alanis Morisette.

  31. 31.

    MagdaInBlack

    He didn’t really break my heart, because I knew what I was getting into* but I do have one I call “My Favorite Mistake”  (Cheryl Crow)

    * Lotsa fun, pure trouble.

    Eta:  Jim Croce ” Operator” is a pretty good heartbreak song

  32. 32.

    topclimber

    From heartache, I have mostly been spared since a college crush. From fool’s games, no such luck.

  33. 33.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @BGinCHI: I’m always a sucker for that I-VI-IV-V chord interval in the chorus.  It’s in countless tunes and it gets me every time.

  42. 42.

    zhena gogolia

    How’s this, a Russian prince broke my heart once. Square biz. (forgive my high-school slang but “Love on a Two-Way Street” has me nostalgic)

  45. 45.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Steeplejack: For you.

    From Gurudutt’s Pyaasa (1957) This is movie on the list of all time greats of Hindi cinema. I

    Jaane woh kaise log thee

    Jinke pyaar ko pyaar mila

    Humne jab kaliyaan mangi

    Kaaton ka haar mila

     

    (Who knows who were the people

    whose love begat love

    When I asked for flower buds

    All I got was a garland of thorns)

    By Sahir Ludhianvi

    Sung by Hemant Kumar

    Pyaas = Thirst

  46. 46.

    Grumpy Old Railroader

    Payday Blues (Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XydTlNeaGUI&ab_channel=DanHicksandTheHotLicks-Topic

    Lyrics are just so delicious and seemed like I lived them a couple of times

    I got my paycheck today
    I think I’ll spend it like a crazy fool
    Or I’ll give it all away
    Something like the golden rule
    And my paycheck ain’t hay
    But somehow I just don’t seem to care
    Ever since she went away
    And left my little house so cold and bare
    And I won’t tell ’em at the bank
    What I’m gonna do with all my dough
    I’ll just smile and tell ’em thanks (thanks)
    For it’s better than they shouldn’t know
    Then I’ll go and have a drink
    At a little place where I can sit and think
    ‘Cause my baby went away
    And left me here on my payday
    Payday was never like this, no, no
    Payday, but where is my happiness, I don’t know
    I think I’ll have another drink
    At a little place where I can sit and think, I’m thinkin’ ’bout the girl who went away
    And left me here on my payday
    Yeah, I think I’ll go down to the home of happy feet
    I’m buying this round, bartender, make mine a hardball banger
    Then I’ll go and have another drink
    At a little place where I can sit and think
    About the girl who went away, baby
    And left me here on my payday

  51. 51.

    Jay

    A Good Year For The Roses, Elvis Costello,

    Ex didn’t know what she wanted. A year and a half of “I want a divorce”, “We should have a baby”, “Couples counselling”, I want a divorce”, over and over again, while home prices crashed,

    In the end, she decided she didn’t want me, but wanted my dog.

    When I hear the song, I miss my dog.

  56. 56.

    Craig

    Last time my heart got ripped out of my chest I played the grooves off of Elliot Smith’s catalog. He’s the Wong Kar-wai of sad waltzes and heartbreaking ballads.

  57. 57.

    Feathers

    Can I say a heartache occurring right now – figure skating? The Kamila Valieva decision will be coming down in the early hours of the morning, US time. I used to love watching the young skaters as they appeared and then the progression of their careers as the artistry grew to match the jumps. Not so much now, but you used to then get their professional careers, where all that mattered was the artistry, and many grew in ways you never expected. Kurt Browning was always a meh for me as an amateur, but as a pro became a fave  (Example 1 – Summertime ) (Example 2 – Nyah)

    I don’t know that I have more links, but the YouTube Channel The Skating Lesson has had a daily update on the case. I’d start with today’s, about the German doctor that has been on payroll for years at the Russian Skating Federation, despite multiple skaters under his care being banned for doping.

  60. 60.

    There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)

    “Kentucky Rain”. I will pull off the road to finish this song.

  62. 62.

    Spanish Moss

    “Brokeback Mountain” is one of the saddest love stories I have read/seen. Not a breakup exactly, but so much heartbreak. Just wrenching. That scene where Ennis goes back to Jack’s childhood home and finds his shirt in Jack’s closet is almost unbearable. I had loved the book (novella?), and questioned whether it was suitable for a movie, but Ang Lee is such an amazing film maker I shouldn’t have worried. The scenery, the spare music, the acting — it was all perfect.

  63. 63.

    MomSense

    Dylan’s Girl from the North Country always gets me.  Spanish Boots of Spanish Leather is more like my tale of unrequited love.

  66. 66.

    Craig

    On the lighter side of heartache His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story. Heartbreak must be easier if you’re rich.

  67. 67.

    Rusty

    I chased this girl I knew from college for a couple of years, but it was never more than friends. I was secretly heartbroken.   I then met someone else, we fell in love with each other and got married.  I found out later the she said, “I let a good one get away.”  Turns out I got the much better of the two.  It’s been a long challenging road, but 4 spawn and 30 years on we are still together.

  75. 75.

    Feathers

    @debbie: I loved the Cold War Olympics, where the Up Close and Personal bits were about athletes from around the world. The baker in Norway who did biathlon, the Japanese track star, you went into their houses and saw their families. It was before the globalized world, so things were very different.

    Now it’s all US athletes, prioritized based on tearjerker pasts. That every story is like that just makes them all unwatchable. This time around it’s all about the parents. It’s really creepy. Athletes getting up at the asscrack of dawn for a decade to train doesn’t matter, it’s their (preferably dead) Mom or Dad who made this all happen. They aren’t even showing the coaches. Figure skating always showed the coach giving that last bit of advice. This year it’s the live video of the family back home. Feels political. Sorry if this is the wrong heartbreak for the thread, I just used to really look forward to watching the Olympics, and they’ve ruined it.

  80. 80.

    BGinCHI

    @Craig: I’ve gotten to where I can’t listen to it at all, or Imperial Bedroom in its entirety. I just wore it out at a certain point in my life and it just doesn’t work for me. Not Elvis’s fault.

  81. 81.

    Craig

    @BGinCHI: I’m with you. Same thing for me and Miss Misery. That song is time, place and person specific to a usually uncomfortable degree. I was pretty sure Elliot Smith wrote that about me and my ex.

  82. 82.

    Wag

    @Craig:   Had the pleasure of seeing Elvis just before the pandemic hit.  He still breaks your heart when he sings Allison

    My aim is is true

  84. 84.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Craig: for movie heartbreak, it’s gotta be Remains of the Day. How many times do they crush each other even before that bus comes.

  87. 87.

    thruppence

    When my wife told me that she wanted a divorce (after years of asking me to promise that I would never leave her) I listened to the Beastie Boys Sabotage over and over. Rage cathartic. We’re on good terms now.

  102. 102.

    PaulB

    Tara MacLean, “If You Could,” is one that always gets me. I first heard it as part of the soundtrack to a Canada flyover movie that I saw at the Vancouver Science World theater in British Columbia.

    And you will never know
    Until you’re standing in my shoes
    Just how much you can love someone
    And how much you can lose
    And If I could make you turn around
    To see how we were then
    Just one look into my eyes
    You’d fall in love again
    If you could see me now

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