Paul Fitzpatrick: Nov 2023

Chucked, dumped, jilted, brushed-off, kissed-off, blew-off, broke up (with), and of course ‘it’s not you it’s me’.

Most people in life will have broken up with someone at some point in their life.

I once got chucked by a girl at school who got her best pal to do the dirty deed…
“she really likes you but she needs to concentrate on her upcoming exams”.

Ouch, coming second to a French mock O-Level…. l’indignite!

It was quite clever on her part (she was a smart cookie), a different way of saying ‘it’s not you it’s me’.
How could I object? Who after all, would want to stand in the way of a bright girl and her academic progress, eh, well now you mention it, I did actually.

Dating at school was a funny business, you’d get your best mate to ask a girl out on your behalf and she’d get her best mate to dump you.

Research has shown that males don’t mature emotionally till the ripe old age of 43, so what are you expecting from a 15-year-old with raging hormones?

I assume social media and smart phones has made this dance a lot easier for today’s young. Nowadays you can probably get chatbot to blend a break up message with a Shakespeare sonnet and come out of it looking pretty good….

“I’m totally confused, I think he just broke up with me but at the same time swore his undying love and compared me to a summer’s day!”

As Neil Sedaka once said ‘breaking up is hard to do’, but in our youth we just went our separate ways and moved on, so spare a thought for Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and Christine & John McVie from Fleetwood Mac who had to share a studio, a tour bus and a stage for 96 dates as part of the Rumours tour whilst they couldn’t stand the sight of one another.

But it wasn’t always that way.

Stevie and Lindsey started off as high school sweethearts before their bitter break-up led to years of acrimony and bile.

As a F*** you Buckingham wrote “Go Your Own Way”, accusing her of abandoning him and sleeping around – “Packing up and shacking up is all you want to do”.

Affronted, she demanded that he remove this part of the lyric. He refused and she later admitted to being crushed every time he sang it.

Nicks would give her side of the story on the song “Silver Springs” –
“I know I could’ve loved you, but you would not let me. I’ll follow you down ’til the sound of my voice will haunt you”.

Haunted indeed, he wanted to set fire to her kaftan every time she sang it.

“Silver Springs” was also written for Rumours but much to her chagrin it ended up on the cutting room floor.
As the album’s co-producer Richard Dashut once said, “The best song that never made it to a record album.”

The first single released from Rumours was Buckingham’s “Go Your Own Way” and relegated to the B side was, yep you guessed it – “Silver Springs”.

The other warring couple in the band was husband and wife team John and Christine McVie, however, their beef was a bit more one-sided in terms of musical ammunition.

Talented keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie was a prolific songwriter whereas poor old John stood like a cardboard cutout on stage but played a mean bass.

Around the time of their break up Christine copped off with the bands lighting director Curry Grant and wrote the song “You Make Loving Fun” about their affair.

“Sweet wonderful you. You make me happy with the things you do”

Feeling bad, she tried to spare John’s feelings by saying the song was about their dog, but John wasn’t buying that shaggy dog story and thereafter the two only spoke to each other to discuss music.

Rumours, released in February 1977, was the result of this dysfunctionality.
A soft-rock masterpiece that sold 40 million copies, immortalised the band and ensured they were fabulously wealthy – so there was some upside.

There are a host of pointed break-up songs from the 70s but my favourite remains Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”, although speculation still rages to this day about who the song is actually about.
Carly recently said that it was about more than one person so you can take your pick from – Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Kris Kristofferson, David Bowie, David Cassidy and Mick Jagger, to name but a few.

You see, our Carly was a bit of a free spirit before settling down with Sweet Baby James

“You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair and that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved
And one of them was me
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee clouds in my coffee and
You’re so vain”

If you’re interested here’s a deeper dive into Carly’s classic…

‘You’re So Vain’ A Single By Carly Simon.