Ten for Tuesday: Anti-Love Songs

It’s Valentine’s Day, that time of the year when we bestow gifts upon those we love, telling them how important they are to us. It’s a time for cards and flowers, special meals and chocolates, and, of course, love songs.

I like a good love song as much as anybody, but making a list of them is a little boring. So, today I offer you ten great anti-love songs, songs that display the other, more cynical, side.

10. Rolling Stones – Dead Flowers
Sample lyrics: “And you can send me dead flowers every morning / Send me dead flowers by the mail / Send me dead flowers to my wedding / And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave.”
Yeah, keep doing me wrong woman. Here’s your flowers.

9. Uncle Tupelo – Gun
Sample lyrics: “Just don’t tell me which way I oughta run / Or what good I could do anyone / ‘Cause my heart, it was a gun / But it’s unloaded now / So don’t bother.”
That last line hurts, man.

8. Guns ‘N’ Roses – Used to Love Her
Sample lyrics: “I used to love her, but I had to kill her / I had to put her six feet under, and I can still hear her complain.” And “I knew I’d miss her, so I had to keep her / She’s buried right in my back yard.”
Next time I suggest you bury her farther away from the house.

7. Lucinda Williams – Joy
Sample lyrics: “I don’t want you anymore / ‘Cause you took my joy / You took my joy / I want it back.”
In this song she’s so hard up for joy she looks for it in West Memphis. Yeah, you know you got it bad when that happens.

6. Beatles – Run For Your Life
Sample lyrics: “Well, I’d rather see you dead, little girl / Than to be with another man / You’d better keep your head little girl / Or I won’t know where I am / You’d better run for your life if you can, little girl / Hide your head in the sand, little girl / Catch you with another man / That’s the end, little girl.”
They may charm you by saying I want to hold your hand, but if you ever let go…

5. R.E.M. – The One I Love
Sample lyrics: “This one goes out to the one I love / This one goes out to the one I left behind / A simple prop to occupy my time”
A prop? Dude, that’s cold.

4. Johnny Cash – Cocaine Blues
Sample lyrics: “Early one morning while making the rounds / I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down / I went right home and I went to bed / I stuck that lovin’ forty-four beneath my head.”
FYI: Cocaine and guns are not a good combination.

3. Bob Dylan – Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright
Sample lyrics: “It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe / If you don’t know by now / And it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe / It’ll never do somehow / When your rooster crows at the break of dawn / Look out your window and I’ll be gone / You’re the reason I’m a-travelin’ on / Don’t think twice, it’s alright.”
Dylan is arguably the king of the anti-love song, with scathing songs like “Idiot Wind” and “Positively 4th Street” in his long and illustrious catalogue, but the way he nonchalantly walks away in this song is just cold-blooded.

2. Amy Lavere – Damn Love Song
Sample lyrics: “Right now, I’ll do it right now / Here’s your damn love song / And don’t it say it all.”
A guy’s begging you to write him a song and you respond with “Here’s your damn love song.” Awesome.

1. Skip James – 22-20 Blues
Sample lyrics: “You know, sometimes she get unruly / And she act like she just don’t wanna do / But I get my 22-20 / I cut that woman half in two.”
Whoa. Those old blues guys didn’t mince words. Ladies, this is not a man you want to date.

What anti-love songs would you add to the list?

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