Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert in an argument (photo from radaronline.com)
Breakups suck. If you’re going through one right now, you probably also know how country music can help you feel better. It’s kind of like therapy.
Country artists feel your pain. From Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert to Kenny Chesney and Renee Zellweger, country music couples have broken up too. Even Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are facing rumors about a potential divorce, according to a “source” and a “friend of the couple.”
Because we can’t always get stars to tell us what they’ve learned about relationships, we can often turn to their music — songs they’ve written (or sing) about heartbreak and lessons they’ve learned.
With that in mind, here are the best country songs to help you through a breakup.
“Love Your Memory” — Miranda Lambert
Lambert just announced that, for two years, she’s been working on her forthcoming album, “The Weight of These Wings.” She said the album has now grown twice as big — 24 songs — so she’ll be releasing it as a double album.
She’s calling part one “The Nerve,” part two “The Heart,” and the whole thing will come out as “The Weight of These Wings” on November 18. And how did she announce this? Instagram, of course. That’s how artists announce big news nowadays. The social media post shows her writing in a notebook: the album name, the subtitles of both discs, and the release date.
Lambert, as mentioned before, used to be married to Shelton. So she knows a thing or two about breakups and relationships.
“Before He Cheats” — Carrie Underwood
Underwood is the eighth highest paid country star today at $26 million. But money can’t fix heartbreak.
Josh Kear, one of the songwriters, told the story of the first time Underwood heard the song, which is about a woman taking revenge on her ex-boyfriend.
“The first time Carrie heard this song, they played it for her on a plane somewhere on that first American Idol tour,” Kear says. “And her reaction was like, “That’s awesome! I just wish they had done more to him.”
“Someone Else Calling You Baby” — Luke Bryan
Have you ever wondered where this song came from? Bryan and producer, Jeff Stevens, wrote the song together.
‘”Someone Else Calling You Baby’ was written from that raw emotion that you feel when someone you love rejects you,” Stevens says. “Just about everybody knows the feeling, and it was easy to write because it’s something you never forget when it happens to you. It’s one of those powerful, unexpected events that change your life in an instant.
“I was on Luke’s bus somewhere out on the road, and he started singing some of the first verse off the top of his head, and I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ve been there.’ We wrote it in just a few minutes — the big guitar lick and all.”
