By The Landlord
"A broken heart feels like poisoned butterflies taking their last flutters in the pit of your stomach." – Jasmine Mans
“Indeed – why should I not admit it? – in that moment, my heart was breaking.”– Stevens, from Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day
"There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he's in there." – Charles Bukowski
“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;” – Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.” – Wallace Stegner, The Spectator Bird
“I think you are wrong to want a heart, Tin Man. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart.” – L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
There's a man from Room 3 in the corner
With his head inside the mask of a horse.
Sweating in the rubber, he tries to pour another,
His life spills on another wayward course.
And nobody knows why he does this,
"Where did it go wrong?" asks a voice,
But that's no waiter, it's an echoing abyss,
And that series of bets were his choice.
There's a lady from Room 5 on the sofa,
She's waiting on her phone for a call,
But as much as she swipes, he won't go for
Her likes, as he's out once again at the football.
She sobs and still thinks she can change him,
Then she stares at the screen by her knees,
There's a photo of her man, right there on Instagram,
In a pub with his secret little squeeze.
Tales of tragedy, tales of despair,
Teenage love to grief from elsewhere,
Down Lonely Street they've all come far
To the basement Heartbreak Hotel Bar.
There's a small boy in Room 8 with no ball,
He'd kicked it in the park lake by mistake,
He shouldn't really care about this little loss at all,
But to him it's like an end-of-world earthquake.
Next day in the park with his kite,
It lifted up so right, light and tight,
But then the string broke, and he began to choke,
As tears came down, the kite just took flight.
Tales of tragedy, of loss or a lover,
Romeo, Juliet, or even Bambi's mother,
Down Lonely Street they've all come far
To the basement Heartbreak Hotel Bar.
Bambi
There's a sprinter in Room 9 walks on crutches.
He trained for one moment his whole life.
Years of sacrifices, refusing fun and vices,
Olympic final pulled, so now the surgeon's knife.
Next door is another downing whisky,
Money, cars and girls, to on the piss,
But now in purgatory, replaying constantly
Scuffed penalty in that World Cup miss.
All out of control, spinning, overthinking,
In a lift shaft when the cable splits,
It’s a sudden jolt, and rapid sinking,
No telling when you reach the very pits.
Return back to black, or wrong goodbyes,
Too many questions, wherefores and whys,
Down Lonely Street they've all come far
To the basement Heartbreak Hotel Bar.
There's a man from Room 6 at the table,
He is eminently skilled and qualified,
His reputation makes him more than able
As a surgeon of the heart to be applied.
Yet 12 hours of labour under hot lights,
On valves and ventricles and aorta,
Couldn't reconcile, as he broke down and cried,
To reveal tragic news of their daughter.
At times life feels so pointless,
With wrong turns and stark choices.
Down Lonely Street they've all come far
To the basement Heartbreak Hotel Bar.
A man walks through the war zone of Ukraine,
Weeks of broken glass, bits of brain,
200 miles, with his pet dog by his side
Through craters and dead bodies, gone insane.
All the killing and the shelling, near the Black Sea,
Slept in holes under bridges, horrifying.
Yet passed all the checkpoints to reach safety,
But now finds his dog is slowly dying.
Tales of tragedy, tales of despair,
Relative problems in the global elsewhere,
Down Lonely Street they've all come far
To the basement Heartbreak Hotel Bar.
Songs of sorrow, songs of grief,
Songs of tragedy beyond belief,
Songs of misfortune, songs long or brief,
Soul-bearing songs to bring some relief.
So take the lift or take the stairs
Bring your songs, unburden your cares,
Down Lonely Street we've all come far
To the basement Heartbreak Hotel Bar.
So then, please suggest your songs about broken hearts or heartbreak in comments below. Playlists will be put together in the sensitive and soothing hands of guest of the week, the marvellous magicman. Deadline is Monday at 11pm UK time.
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