My Ex Ruined My Favorite Songs

Papi, do I need a completely new playlist?

¡Hola Papi! is the preeminent deranged advice column from writer and author John Paul Brammer, now living on Substack! If you’ve ever wanted advice from a Twitter-addled gay Mexican with anxiety, here is your chance. Support this column by sharing it and subscribing below. Send Papi a letter at holapapiletters@gmail.com

¡Hola Papi!

This guy dumped me for someone else, and I'm devastated. Beside the usual crushed hopes and broken dreams, there is this bitter regret, even a withering contempt that I'm harboring against him. Because he ruined some of my favorite music.

What can I say, I'm a music enjoyer like anyone else. So when I met him and instantly bonded with him over the same music taste, I felt like he was the one, like this would be the type of "un-separating on a vibrancy, sending each other MP3s" type of love Björk was singing about.

Unfortunately, it wasn't. And now I'm sitting here frantically scrolling through my music library to search for some albums that don't have memories of him attached to them. What's even worse is that I let myself see the new playlists he made for his new lover, and some of the songs we used to enjoy together are on there! This sucks, and feels very unfair. It may sound selfish, but those were MY favorite artists. MY feelings, MY memories! All Mine! How dare he!

I know, I know, there's tons of other songs to listen to. He barely even ruined 10% of my entire music collection. And I have since blocked him across all platforms to prevent that number from increasing as well. But I still want to listen to my Marvin Gaye without thinking about that Gaye if you know what I mean.

I'm doing therapy, practicing self-love, running up that hill, putting in the work to move on, and yet I can't seem to stop this one tiny little thing from bothering me. Now I don't even want to share music with new potential romantic partners because I'm scared the same thing is going to happen again. How can I detach painful memories of a person from these amazing songs that used to bring me joy and comfort? Help me out please, Papi!

Sincerely,

Cocteau Twink

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Hey there, CT!

First of all, based on all your artist references, we would vibe on a sonic level. Great taste! Good job. 

But in regards to your dilemma, I totally get it. Sound comes close to the power of scent when it comes to triggering memories (it’s true, look it up), so it makes sense that certain songs would hold strong associations with your ex after a rough breakup. I hope you can bear with me here, because I have a point to make that might help you, but it will require a long detour into Lemonade by Beyoncé.

The album came out right as I was moving to New York, and “Hold Up” never fails to place me squarely on a sweaty, crowded M train heading to Queens to check out an apartment I could barely afford. It was a stressful time. I was sharing an inflatable mattress with a nice goth woman who vaguely knew a friend of mine back in Oklahoma and had agreed to take me in while I was apartment hunting. I hated my job, was struggling to find my way forward, and, well, the gay people seemed intimidating and uninterested in me. 

And yet, despite all that, I still find myself with a strange appreciation for that time. Listening to “Hold Up” scratches an incredibly specific itch—the desire to go back there, to place myself in my old shoes even though I had blisters from walking so much, to luxuriate in the gentle pangs of nostalgia. It was an era mostly defined by discomfort. So what gives?

Sure, I could point to the more pleasurable aspects of my move. There was something magical about it, as I didn’t know the city yet, and naïveté does breed enchantment. The lights piled high into the sky, the seductive promise of a dimly lit gay bar, the excitement of walking into a local coffee shop and thinking, “maybe this one will be mine.” These are fond memories, but they don’t completely explain why I would want to revisit that time of my life, because the thorny truth of the matter is I miss the bitter things, too. 

When I look at it, I notice that the unpleasant parts have been cast in the same melodramatic hues as the pleasant parts, bringing a necessary vinegar to the flavor. It would seem I’m not alone in doing this, with many fessing up to feeling nostalgic for the terrifying early days of the pandemic, toilet paper shortages and Tiger King and all, an instinct that would understandably befuddle some. A common theory for this strange impulse is that, over time, the negative things fade away, leaving only the positive in our memory bank. 

While I’m certain that’s part of it, I don’t think it accounts for the weirdness of humans: humans do, rather frequently, find pleasure in pain. It’s not as simple, CT, as “I miss the good stuff.” We can also find ourselves incorporating “the bad stuff” into the fantasia of bygone eras. I often transport myself to unbearably hot summer days in my abuelos’ house where they didn’t have air conditioning. It’s something of my mental comfort space, despite the actual environment being uncomfortable. I can’t speak for everyone, but even downright miserable times in my life hold some nostalgic appeal, like a particularly acidic snack, like salt and vinegar chips, maybe.

Perhaps it’s because past miseries are defanged and can seem preferable to the ones presently, uh, fanging us. They can be observed from new angles, now that we know they can’t leap up and hurt us. Sometimes the past just seems preferable to the present, even if the past wasn’t great. I think this is part of it, too, even if it doesn’t explain anything. 

I think, CT, that part of the pleasure of nostalgia comes from a sense of organization. When we conjure a memory, we’re actually engaging in a great deal of fiction. Memory is different from historical records (and even historical records are impacted quite a bit by the human urge to narrativize everything). We get to take what we remember from a time in our life and mold it into a chapter in our story, warts and all. And what’s a story without conflict? Without obstacles? Not a very good story at all. 

So, what does this have to do with Björk and Cocteau Twins? 

I think that in the immediate wake of this breakup, you haven’t really settled on your narrative yet. The pain is still fresh, the resentment still strong, and you probably have a visceral distaste for anything that presses too hard on those bruises. That’s completely normal, and taking a break, even a long break, from those songs is a good idea. But I wouldn’t count them out of your life just yet, because as strange as it may seem right now, you might find a completely new way to appreciate them down the road. 

It’s not that you’ll miss your ex or wish he would come back. It’s more that this relationship represents a chapter of your life, and those songs were the soundtrack. You might never be able to listen to them the same way again, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you incorporate the narrative power of your breakup into your personal meaning for them. Because, really, that’s what music is for. We take a sound and incorporate it into the project of ourselves. 

You might not have lost these songs forever, CT! So don’t hold a funeral for Homogenic just yet. If nostalgia teaches us anything, it’s that the past has a funny way of reintroducing itself into the present. 

Con mucho amor,

Papi