339: Break-Up

Ira Glass

From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.

Ira Glass

When I walked around Lauren's neighborhood with her, it had been two months since her boyfriend broke up with her. They'd gone out for about 10 months before that. She was incredibly nice to let herself be taped in still a pretty raw state. But even in the middle of that raw state, she was acutely aware, and said herself that everything she was going through was a cliché-- a cliché that she was forced to live through.

Ira Glass

If I had to say one thing about Lauren, it's that she was full of feelings that completely contradicted each other, which I guess just comes with this territory. Like she emphatically did not want him to call. But also maybe a little bit wanted him to call. She missed him, and she didn't want to stop thinking about him. But she also did all this elaborate math to calculate the day that she would finally be over him and not thinking about him and with somebody else.

We get to an area where she had been on walks with the ex-boyfriend. There are benches and a sidewalk promenade.

Ira Glass

During a breakup, you just stare at what happened. There's a before, and there's an after, and you just can't believe it. Lauren says she still doesn't even understand what went wrong between her and him. And that's part of it, too, so much of the time.

Well, we got the idea for today's radio show from an email that a listener sent. It says, "Dear This American Life, I'm suffering from a gut-wrenching breakup with my former boyfriend and I searched your site for shows about breakups and general heartbreak to commiserate, but to my surprise, I didn't find many stories specifically regarding the act of breaking up. I hope you consider it. A show like that would really cheer me up."

And so with that in mind, we devote our show today to breakups. Partly today, we have an anatomy of the completely contradictory feelings that are part of a breakup. I think that's what makes it such a special and particularly cursed state. And we have stories today about people trying in some very unusual, very resourceful ways to make themselves feel better during a breakup. The key word there would be "trying."

Our show today in four acts. In Act One, Starlee Kine heads out on a breakup mission unlike any we have ever heard of. In Act Two, an eight year old heads out into the world to get some answers about her parents' breakup. In Act Three, a man who has turned his back on the ways of his people-- his people, in this case, being divorce lawyers. Act Four, Merrill Markoe notes one possibly overlooked way to mend a broken heart, and it involves a soggy, plastic, disky thing. You'll just have to trust me on that one. Stay with us.

Ira Glass

Act One, Dr. Phil.

When one of our regular contributors, Starlee Kine, was in the middle of getting over a breakup, she tried to feel better in a way that few people ever try, and that maybe even she shouldn't have. Here's Starlee.

Starlee Kine

Before I explain why I decided to write and record a breakup song even though I have no musical ability and can't play an instrument of any kind, I should probably explain a bit about the breakup itself. It was only after Anthony broke up with me that all the warning signs I had missed came sharply into focus. Like the time he told me he didn't like taking pictures of girlfriends because it was a downer to have those photos around once a relationship was over.

I'd had a crush on him since the day we met, but he always had a girlfriend in Canada. Then she broke up with him, and we got together. A week after that, he told me I was the one, which, in retrospect, was probably the biggest warning sign of all. It was, hands down, the corniest relationship I've ever been in. And by corniest, I mean greatest. We'd pass entire evenings just complimenting each other. We took hand-holding to new heights. And we listened to hours and hours of music, teenager style, playing one song after another while smiling a lot.

I don't quite remember how our Phil Collins phase began. I think it was one of those things that started off ironically, with Anthony lip-syncing, adorably, to "Against All Odds" one night. But over time, it became less and less ironic, until one day, we were actual fans.

Starlee Kine

We liked how honest and sad it was. "How can I just let you walk away, just let you leave without a trace? You're the only one who really knew me at all." We pictured Phil Collins at the piano writing it, the tears running down his face.

Starlee Kine

Anthony broke up with me on New Year's Eve. I told you-- corny. I didn't really see it coming, and I definitely didn't want it to happen. He said, you're going to be OK. I just cried and cried. I wanted to stop it, to fix it. I searched deep inside myself for the right words to say, and out of my mouth popped this. How can you just let me walk away? I'm the only one who really knew you at all. And I meant it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that, in that moment, no one could have conveyed how I was feeling better than Phil Collins.

Starlee Kine

If I thought I'd been in the Phil Collins phase before, it was nothing compared to what came next. I was no longer listening to a song for pleasure, but for pain. They were breakup songs, and hearing them was the only thing that made me feel better. And by better, I mean worse.

There's something so satisfying about listening to sad songs. They're like how you would actually be spending your day if you were allowed to just break down and sob and grab hold of everyone you met. They make you feel less alone with your crazy thoughts. They don't judge you. In fact, they understand you.

A breakup song won't ever suggest you start online dating or that you're better off without him. They tell you that you're worse without him, which is exactly what you want to hear because it's how you feel. I didn't want to be cheered up. I didn't want to bounce back. I didn't want to meet someone new. I wanted to wallow, big time, deeply, and with the least amount of perspective possible. And the only way to do that was by turning off my phone and turning up the sad, sad music, like this song that I love by the band The Magnetic Fields.

Starlee Kine

It's great because the lyrics perfectly articulate this feeling you didn't even know you had. Then there's the Bonnie Raitt song, "I Can't Make You Love Me."

Starlee Kine

The song was written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin after they read this little article in the newspaper about a guy who'd gotten drunk and shot up his girlfriend's car. At his sentencing, he was asked if he learned any lessons from what he'd done. And he said, "Yes. You can't make a woman love you if she don't."

Starlee Kine

Before the breakup, I had no idea how much breakup music was out there. For example, every song ever written. Or at least every third. But once you're heartbroken, you notice it everywhere. You find yourself in the supermarket, listening to a song you've heard before, but never really heard, thinking to yourself, it's just so true.

Starlee Kine

It's not just that you overlook the cheesiness. You embrace it. You do want to know what love is. There's nothing restrained or subtle about being crushed by the person you care most about in the world. It's big and gaudy, and so it only makes sense that songs about it are, too.

Starlee Kine

It was after listening to all these songs for months that I knew what I had to do. I had to write one myself. I needed to take charge of my pain. I needed to take wallowing to the next level. It wasn't enough just to be lying on the floor in my pajamas, listening to these songs at 3:00 in the afternoon. I wanted to be the songs. I wanted to be the pain. I wanted to be inside the stereo speakers, to be the sound waves coming into my own head. I wanted to be the thing creating the feeling I was feeling. And I knew just what kind of breakup song I would write.

[MUSIC - "YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME" BY DUSTY SPRINGFIELD]

Torch songs are about the most pathetic, desperate, and lonely part of yourself-- the part you'd never admit to your friends, the part of you that knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that you would take him back. Not only that, he wouldn't have to beg or even apologize. Dusty Springfield made a whole career out of these songs. "I Just Can't Make It Alone," "I Only Want to Be with You," "All I See Is You," "Losing You," or this one, which might be the most pitiful sentiment ever uttered out loud.

Starlee Kine

It's just so pathetic. And deep down, it's how I felt, too. And it felt good to have someone just come out and say it. There are some words you can never speak, but somehow you can sing.

So I knew what kind of song I was going to write, but I had no idea how to go about writing it. I needed some advice. And out of thousands of musicians who write about heartbreak, there was only one I cared to talk to.

Phil Collins, of course. What? Is that weird? I got it into my head that it'd be great to ask Phil Collins how to write a breakup song, the same way you might think to yourself, I'd really love to talk to Michael Jordan about free throws. I never thought it would actually happen.

Then, against all odds, it turned out I had a friend who was on the road with Phil Collins, on his Genesis reunion tour, shooting footage for the DVD extras. He gave me his contact info, and I sent him an email. "Dear Mr. Collins, I have a rather unusual request." Then I waited, refreshing my inbox every three seconds.

When his email finally appeared, he was friendly and casual. We set up a time to talk. In my mind, he was already so intimately involved in my breakup that it seemed crazy that he didn't actually know about it. So I told him.

Starlee Kine

Whereas before, it was Anthony and I talking about Phil, now it was Phil and I talking about Anthony. Actually pretty tidy, when you think about it.

And before long, Phil Collins and I were commiserating about heartbreak, which he also went through recently.

Starlee Kine

Up until this conversation, I never thought I had much in common with Phil Collins. He started playing in Genesis at the age of 19. I didn't. He performed in Live Aid, while I only watched it on TV. He was in the movie Buster, which I never actually saw.

But talking to him was easy. He told me that, when he was in Genesis, he just played drums and sang. He didn't write. "Against All Odds" was one of the first songs he wrote himself, when he was working on his first solo album.

Starlee Kine

OK. There are so many crazy things about this. First of all, even Phil Collins can't help but quote Phil Collins. Second, if it hadn't been for his wife leaving him in 1979, Phil Collins would never have become Phil Collins. Heartbreak turned a jazz/rock fusion drummer into an international pop icon.

But the other crazy thing was how honest and normal he was about it. Once again, Phil Collins put into words what I was feeling. There's a part of me-- and it is not a small part-- that wants my ex, Anthony, to hear the song I write and ask to come back.

I told Phil that I'd been trying to write my songs, but they just didn't feel right. They were too wordy or something. But when I tried to consult songs that I loved to see how it was done, even the lyrics to the best songs looked flat on the page. I wanted to know how to transform clichéd sentiment into a song that captured the entire range of human emotions. I wanted to know how simple sentences like "love hurts. Love scars" became--

Starlee Kine

So now I had the advice. I had the pain. It was time to start writing. It was pretty terrifying at first. Every single word I put down seemed wrong, even the ones that seemed like they had to go in-- the no-brainers. I'd type the word love, then erase it, and then type it again.

Then, one day, I was waiting for the train, and I started thinking about how that train reminded me of Anthony, and then how our love was sort of like a runaway train. Oh, that's good, I thought, and scribbled the line down on the back of my gas bill. Suddenly, heartbreak was flowing out of the cracks in the sidewalk, and it was up to me to transform it into song.

The next problem was-- and it felt like a small problem, really-- was my complete lack of musical ability. So I asked a guy named Joe McGinty for some help. He's a New York musician who has played with everyone from The Ramones to Ryan Adams to Ronnie Spector. He was in The Psychedelic Furs. He has a million songs. More importantly-- for my purposes, at least-- Joe is a man who understands heartbreak. Here's one of his songs I really like.

Starlee Kine

So I met up with Joe and also Julia Greenberg, a musician and songwriter who plays with Joe a lot. I'd written about a dozen songs, some of them more finished than others. When I printed them out, I had six freshly typed pages of lyrics and then about 15 crazy-looking pages with a few lines here and there, separated by random spaces. I had sent these all off to Joe and Julia before our meeting. Here's Joe reading the one I thought was farthest along.

Starlee Kine

Wow. I thought I'd been working on a song, but I don't even know how to describe what that was. A creative writing class essay, maybe. It was clear that I'd ignored Phil Collins' advice. Keep it simple, not clever. Joe and Julia agreed.

Starlee Kine

When Julia pulled out her favorite of my songs from the very bottom of the stack. I'd been so sure it wasn't a contender that I'd almost not included it at all.

Starlee Kine

I have to admit I was skeptical. That lyric was from the crazy pile, just notes for an idea I had for a torch song. I tried to think of the most pathetic scenario I could. What I came up with was this.

Anthony goes back to his ex-girlfriend. But rather than letting him go, I agree to be this awkward third wheel, as long as it means still getting to see him occasionally. The lines were literally, "I liked you, and you liked her, and I sort of liked her because you liked her." Julia had run with the idea, with one minor change.

Julia had been so sure it was an actual song that she'd gotten to work before our meeting. She'd sketched out a melody and sung it to Joe on his answering machine. They played it for me.

Starlee Kine

So yes, in theory, I knew all this, that music was important. It transforms words, unites the universe together. But I'd never actually seen it happen in front of me.

So now the three of us had written a song about the other three of us. Over the next week, we finessed the lyrics, tweaked the melody, and recorded the song. It seemed obvious who should get the first listen. And no, I don't mean Anthony. That'd be crazy. I mean Phil Collins.

So I played him the song. I'll skip the part you've already heard and the bridge and jump right to the end.

Starlee Kine

Now that the song is done, it's really hard not to wonder if Anthony is going to hear it. I'd like to say I've gone back and forth on whether I even want him to, but the truth is, of course I do. Everyone I talk to, from my best friend all the way to Phil Collins, says he'll listen. And yes, if the roles were reversed, and it were me, I definitely would. But I know Anthony. If anyone could resist listening, it would be him. You're just going to have to trust me on this one.

Which doesn't mean I think he'll never hear the song. I can see him keeping a copy of it in some box stuffed with mixtapes and copies of SAT scores so that he can listen to it one day when he's ready. I picture him 40 years from now, an old man living in some house that I'll never see, which breaks my heart. In my head, he doesn't look like a real old man, but like a young one wearing stage makeup. I imagine him sitting down to finally listen on the CD player that people make fun of him for still having. He loads it in and hits play. He listens to the entire song from start to finish. And when it's over, he plays it again and again until the tears are running down his face.

Ira Glass

Starlee Kine.

[MUSIC - "IF YOU EVER NEED A STRANGER (TO SING AT YOUR WEDDING)" BY JENS LEKMAN]

You can hear more stories from Starlee Kine on her podcast Mystery Show. Coming up, a big city mayor, an eight-year-old girl, and a dog weigh in with their solutions to getting over your next breakup. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Each week on our show, of course, we choose a theme and bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, "Break-Up," stories from inside the vortex of shockingly contradictory feelings that happen after a breakup.

Ira Glass

We've arrived at Act Two of our show. Act Two, But Why?

After a relationship ends, you can puzzle for years over why things went wrong and did they have to. And you yearn for a simple story that explains it. And that's not just true for the people in the relationship. It's true for the kids. And now, with that thought, let's flip on the radio time machine.

Ira Glass

The welfare reform that they're talking about here is that of President George Herbert Walker Bush. The day that this aired, February 11, 1987, I was one of the lower-level producers at All Things Considered. But that day, I got to work on this story about breakups that I still think about, a story about somebody who was wanting to understand a breakup and reaching out to various people out in the world to do that-- in a way, like Starlee did.

So OK, all you need to know is it's 1987. Edward Koch is the mayor of New York City. Noah Adams is one of the hosts of All Things Considered at the time, and he does the interview.

Ira Glass

It's been years since we first broadcast this show, and Betsy Allison Walter is now Betsy New-Schneider. She has two little kids of her own, one of whom is actually near the age Betsy was when she first sat down for her first interview with Noah Adams more than 30 years ago. You can still hear Noah on various NPR news shows.

[MUSIC - "NOW THAT IT'S LONG OVER" BY BRISA ROCHE]

Ira Glass

Act Three, Let No Court Put Asunder.

Now we have this example of somebody trying to make breakups less horrible than they are. Barry Berkman used to be like any divorce lawyer. He fought for his clients. He tried to get them big settlements. But he came to believe that what he was doing actually was not so good for most of his clients, which, you know, was kind of a big problem. Here's the kind of thing he would see. A guy comes in, ready for a divorce.

Ira Glass

Adversarial style divorces make up a ton of all divorce proceedings around the country. And Barry felt like most of those cases ended up like this one-- incredibly expensive, taking a huge emotional toll on everybody, damaging children. So after 15 years of doing these cases like this, he started looking for a different way. And he found something called collaborative divorce.

In collaborative divorce, each spouse gets a lawyer, and then the spouses and the lawyers sit down in a room together to work out some kind of agreement. But under the rules of collaborative divorce, if one of the lawyers thinks that the other side is being intransigent or unreasonable, not only can he not threaten to go to court, if it does go to court, he has to give up the case. He has to give the case to another lawyer to do. So the lawyers have an incentive to work everything out.

So OK. They all sit down together, the spouses and the lawyers. And Barry Berkman says that, even though the spouses enter this situation with good intentions of working everything out, the biggest obstacle he has is something very simple.

Ira Glass

But this collaborative divorce process makes you actually show up to meetings with your spouse and your lawyers and start talking. And as these two people talked, they started to see each other's side of things. Maybe he hadn't been around enough. Maybe she could have been more supportive.

Ira Glass

Usually, of course, the spouses do not get back together. When the process works, Barry Berkman says, at least they end up feeling a little better about each other.

Ira Glass

Barry Berkman is a lawyer in New York and a member of the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals, which he helped found. Collaborative divorce, by the way, was invented by a Minneapolis lawyer named Stuart Webb.

[MUSIC - "WALKING AWAY" BY BROTHER ALI]

Ira Glass

Act Four, Divorce Is Rrruuffff!

We close our show today with this vignette of just how lost you feel when you lose somebody, from Merrill Markoe, recorded on stage at Un-Cabaret in Los Angeles.

Merrill Markoe

Today, our friend Paul came to the house in a near dissociative state of panic. Suddenly and without warning, it appeared that his marriage was unraveling. He sat down on the big, red couch in the living room, and I offered him a vodka as he started detailing his anguish.

"Up until yesterday, if you'd asked me if my marriage was a happy one, I would have said yes," he said, choking back tears. "And then last night, out of the blue, my wife comes in and tells me she wants a divorce." As Paul spoke, Andy's dog, Puppy Boy, a skinny, brown-and-black Tijuana shepherd, approached with his mouth full of a large, black, completely deflated soccer ball. He placed the flat, wet piece of rubber gently on Paul's knee and then sat down right in front of him to wait for the games to begin.

Paul was too upset to notice. "She told me she wants to start seeing other men," Paul said, tears welling up in his eyes. "And that's not even the worst of it. Today, I found out from friends they've already seen her around town with another guy. They didn't want to say anything until now." He began to cry. And as he did, Puppy Boy. Attempted to apply a little additional pressure by picking up the deflated piece of rubber off Paul's knee and moving it to a new spot a little further up Paul's leg.

But Paul had the bad manners to be completely preoccupied by his own tragedy. "I have no idea what I'm going to do," he said, as Puppy Boy moved in a little closer and began staring a little harder, his eyes going intently from the black, flat, rubber thing that was now balancing on Paul's thigh, to Paul's face, and then back to the flat, black, rubber thing, as if to help Paul out in case he was having trouble locating it.

"It's been just emotionally devastating," Paul continued. "Everything I've worked for has fallen apart. And what happens to me now? Am I going to lose everything-- my house, my cars, my savings?" He broke down and began to sob, the only time I've ever seen this incredibly stoic man cry. Which was the signal to Puppy Boy that the game was finally about to get going.

[LAUGHTER]

So he picked up the deflated soccer ball off Paul's thigh and moved it to the most conveniently located spot of all-- the very center of Paul's lap. Then he sat back down in front of Paul and resumed his intense staring. So he kept doing this for the whole two hours that Paul was at our house.

Later that night, after Paul had gone home to pick up the pieces of his shattered existence, I began to wonder what Puppy Boy might have to say for himself about this behavior. So I asked him. Puppy Boy replies, "Hello, new seated person. I am Puppy Boy. And I can see that you are very upset for some reason, but I have something on my mind. I'm going out on a limb here and tell you that it is the most important thing I have ever had to say, and it is this. I have placed a thing on you that you must throw.

[LAUGHTER]

If you look down now, you will see it. It is that large, flat thing that is balancing on your knee.

Please listen to me when I tell you that this is an opportunity you cannot pass up. By the way, you have noticed that your knee has a big, flat, wet thing balancing on it, haven't you? Or are you so busy sobbing and weeping and talking about yourself that you are having trouble seeing it? Here's a hint. I'm staring at it right now. So if you can imagine a laser beam coming from my eyes, and then follow it down to the spot on your leg where it is focused, it'll lead you right to it.

The only other possible explanation for your puzzling lack of interest is that you are purposefully ignoring me. And why would you do that? Especially since you are really hurting yourself more than you are hurting me because, let's face it, you're the one who's passing up a great opportunity. And by a great opportunity, I'm referring to the chance to have the kind of fun that everyone dreams of having. I speak of the chance to throw a big, flat, stretchy, wet thing. And guess where it is right now?

[LAUGHTER]

Throw it now or live a life of regret.

I mean, I can't stop you if you'd rather just listen to yourself talk. Wife, wife, wife. She did this. She did that. Really fascinating. For Christ's sakes, look into my eyes and play along! Pick up the big, flat, wet thing. Pick it up! Pick up the big, flat, wet thing. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick up the big, flat, wet thing. Can you hear me OK? Pick up the big, flat, wet thing. Are you even listening? You know, maybe if you had listened a little better during your marriage, your wife wouldn't want a divorce. Did you ever think of that? It wouldn't surprise me if you never threw the thing she brought you, either."

Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

Ira Glass

Merrill Markoe at Un-Cabaret in Los Angeles. Merrill's most recent collection of essays is called Cool, Calm, and Contentious. Thanks to Greg Miller of Un-Cabaret.

[MUSIC - "AGAINST ALL ODDS" BY THE POSTAL SERVICE]

Ira Glass

Well, our program was produced today by Robyn Semien and myself, with Alex Blumberg, Jane Marie, John Jeter, Sarah Koenig, Lisa Pollak, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike. Our senior producer for today's show was Julie Snyder. Our technical director is Matt Tierney. Production helpfrom Seth Lind, Lygia Navarro, PJ Vogt, and Alvin Melathe. Music help for today's show from Jessica Hopper.

Special thanks today to NPR. Noah Adams' interview from 1987 was originally broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, where I was a proud staffer, and was used with permission of NPR. Thanks to Ellen Weiss.

Thanks to the musicians who played Starlee's song in Act One-- Joe McGinty on keyboard, Jeremy Chatzky on bass and electric guitar, Julia Greenberg on vocals and acoustic guitar, and Natalie Weiss sings backup. Starlee Kine on tambourine.

When we first ran this show, we invited listeners to take the raw tracks of Starlee's song and mix their own versions. The response was kind of incredible-- 129 entries. You can hear the winners of our breakup song contest at our website, thisamericanlife.org, where you can also listen to-- for free-- any of our old shows in our archive.

This American Life is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia, who's been listening to the show over the phone this week, and he has some thoughts.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

[MUSIC - "AGAINST ALL ODDS" BY THE POSTAL SERVICE]