5 Breakup Songs That Will Get Every Boomer Mad All Over Again

Pop music, with its poetry-adjacent lyrics expressing emotional bursts and evocative flashes of plot, is the perfect vehicle for discussing what it feels like to be in love — and to fall out of love. The 1970s in particular was a boom era for pop and rock in general, as it splintered into several viable subgenres with their own superstars and visionaries. What this new generation of music stars often had in common: They could write a terrific, devastating, and unfortunately resonant breakup song.

In part because the end of a relationship can provoke all kinds of feelings — some combination of sadness, grief, anger, and confusion — there are numerous types of breakup songs. Even 50 years later, some '70s breakup songs can take a Boomer back to their first heartache; others distilled the rage, hurt, and wounded ego of being dumped or rejected into songs so sharp and enduring they've become classics. Those are the songs we're exploring here: five of the most outstanding — and unapologetically bitter — breakup songs from the peak Boomer era, the 1970s.

"Band of Gold" is a deceptive song. Starting out with a fast-paced and upbeat instrumental of a bass riff, guitar strings, and propulsive drumming, this danceable soul hit that reached No. 3 in 1970 makes its intentions known with the first lyric delivered with a pained twinge by singer Freda Payne: "Now that you're gone." The song unfolds from there, as Payne details how it all went wrong — what was supposed to be a moment of triumph for her relationship and a new chapter is instead the moment of its shocking demise. All the narrator has left is a band of gold, a wedding ring, which is utterly meaningless due to recent events, as her brand-new husband has left her all alone on their wedding night.

This is a song about the emotional whiplash that can come from a breakup, and listeners can't help but feel it. And yet there's quite a bit of mystery, suggesting a potentially scandalous reason behind the split at a surprising time, one that causes the narrator to express deep embarrassment. Theories abound: Was "Band of Gold" about a newlywed getting cold feet after the wedding, leading to a departure? Was the narrator's new husband unable to consummate the marriage? Was someone full of regret? That's all up to the listener.

It's one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in classic rock: Who, exactly is "You're So Vain," Carly Simon's No. 1 hit from 1973, actually about? The singer-songwriter has never publicly revealed the identity of the song's subject, but it kind of doesn't matter, because she got her point across. "You're So Vain" is all at once a kiss-off, an eye-roll, and a walk-away in musical form.

The point-of-view character in the song, presumably Simon, who often pulls from her own life and experiences for her harrowing and deeply cutting confessional songs, has broken up with and moved on from some odious and atrocious person. Less concerned with loving her or working on a relationship, he's mainly interested in himself — fulfilling his own needs and obsessed with how others see him. He's conceited, he's stuck-up, he's vain — so much so that Simon knows that when he hears this song, he'll presume that he's the subject. The accusations will meet their target, and that's why "You're So Vain" is such a terrifically cathartic breakup song — mistakes were made, the relationship is done, and the hurt person has moved past the pain to see that they weren't the one at fault, even if they're still a little mad about it.

Linda Ronstadt's cover is the most famous and successful version of "You're No Good," which had already been recorded several times throughout the 1960s. Ronstadt's version hit No. 1 in early 1975, clearly demonstrating that '70s listeners could relate to the material. Processing the end of a long or important romance is similar to grief — it takes a few steps, a bit of time, to get past the initial shock and awfulness to arrive at a new emotional plateau of acceptance. "You're No Good" concerns a character that's on the tail end of that path. They acknowledge that the relationship is over and so is the love, realizing along the way that they're better off without their now-former partner, because they were nothing but a bad person and an utter mistake that left them emotionally tattered.

The narrator is gloriously, emphatically, and confidently happy now that the love is dead, it would seem, but all those good feelings get a bit clouded in the second verse. They express remorse over behaving in a similar way to the character demonized in the first verse — that they, too, once treated another's heart with casual cruelty. Perhaps with some clarity now that they've been on both sides of a breakup, the narrator can look at the recent situation with nuance and once again proclaims the no-goodness of a former flame.

It's actually a dark and alarming tale of an ill-advised and likely illegal relationship gone sour, but one probably wouldn't notice that on their first listen to "Maggie May." Rod Stewart sings the No. 1 hit from 1971 with what sounds like a wide smile on his face and even a hint of misplaced, wistful nostalgia atop a jaunty, folky, mandolin-driven melody.

Stewart co-wrote "Maggie May," and in interviews he has revealed that it's about the first woman with whom he was physically intimate. That occurred at a 1961 music festival, when Stewart would've been 16 years old. His partner was an adult woman, making her a predator and Stewart a victim of abuse. All that is depicted in the back-looking "Maggie May." It's not a love song about a formative experience; it's about a man trying to figure out what happened to him, and to determine the extent of the psychological damage. Stewart accuses the woman of luring him out of the safety of his youth to be her companion. "You stole my soul," he levies at one point. "Maggie May" is as sad as it is vicious.

Most of the songs on Fleetwood Mac's wildly successful 1977 album "Rumours" are about breakups — because it was written and recorded as the members of the band ended their romantic relationships with one another. Many angles and takes appear on "Rumours," but Lindsey Buckingham's "Go Your Own Way" is the most vitriolic, honestly capturing the anger of the scorned and rejected, feelings held by many Boomers (and others) who have gone through a particularly nasty and tricky split.

Framed like one side of a conversation, the song begins with Buckingham taking some blame for the situation at hand, acknowledging that it's unwise for him to continue to harbor romantic feelings for someone (in this case, his bandmate Stevie Nicks). As the song builds musically, stacking instruments and picking up speed, Buckingham gets louder and angrier as he rattles off his grievances in a destructive but therapeutic manner. He repeatedly alleges that the partner he claims he no longer wants has refused to accept his love and devotion, before announcing that she's free to leave and let him be. This song probably helped plenty of Boomers navigate their similarly complex mid-breakup feelings.