"I only hope the future you can find happiness …"
"To part well, I should let it fade — now you've found your someone …"
"Give me one reason to forget you, the you who once loved me …"
After a breakup, have you ever put one sad song on repeat? Do you have a heartbreak song that's all your own — the one you reach for when you cry? The more you listen, the more it hurts, yet you press play again and again. So why is it that sad songs draw in people who are already hurting?
In what situations do people especially want to listen to sad music?
Sadness is something most of us feel often, and in different situations a melancholy song can leave us with very different feelings. In a 2014 experiment, the researchers Taruffi Liila and Koelsch Stefan found that emotional distress is the main driver behind people choosing to listen to sad music — including breakups, the loss of a loved one, and academic or work-related stress. Most of these people turn to sad songs for self-comfort, as a way of releasing their emotions. Loneliness is another important factor: when we feel isolated and long to be understood or accepted, sad songs give us a kind of imagined social contact through which we can share how we feel and find a sense of resonance.
The psychology of breakup songs: sad music and emotion
In the same experiment, Taruffi and Koelsch (2014) found that, when we listen to music, memory is what most powerfully shapes our emotions. They noted that sad music stirs our autobiological memory, calling to mind the things we have lived through. Autobiological memory is a form of episodic memory — that is, the distinctive memories tied to our own experiences, especially the milestones of a life such as family events, graduation, exam results, or breakups. The experiences a sad song brings back are far more likely to touch the emotions buried deep within us. The second principle is emotional contagion: listeners internalise the emotion a singer expresses as their own, which prompts the same emotional response in us. So when we listen to sad music, we are swept up by it almost without realising, feeling a kinship with the song and a wave of sadness.
When your heart is broken, how do you choose what to listen to?
The psychologists Annemieke van den Tol and Jane Edwards (2015) proposed several strategies people use when choosing different kinds of music:
- Connection: we choose songs that relate to our own experiences. Through the re-experiencing effect that listening produces, we can self-regulate our emotions or release feelings that are weighing on us in the moment. Another researcher, Larsen Randy (2000), drew on mood management theory to argue that, as long as the long-term goal is a more pleasant emotional state, people don't mind enduring short-term sad feelings in order to improve how they feel over the longer run. So most of us are willing to accept this method of working through sadness by listening to sad music.
- Aesthetic Value: we choose songs with a beautiful melody to achieve diversion or mood enhancement. According to a theory proposed by Suvi Saarikallio in 2011, people will sometimes choose to listen to music that is mood-incongruent in order to take their minds off their sadness, balancing and managing their own emotions.
- Message Music: we choose music that carries meaning, and the songs that speak to what is in our hearts hold the strongest pull. By listening to and reflecting on the content of a song, we can achieve cognitive reappraisal, strengthening our awareness of a particular way of thinking or of expressing emotion.
Music and emotion are closely intertwined, and we also use different kinds of songs to give voice to how we feel. But everyone has their own preferences and habits, and research has also found that for some people, listening to sad songs while they are already sad more readily triggers low, depressive feelings. So we, too, should choose the playlist that suits us, guided by our own habits and personality!
References
Garrido, S. (2017). Why are we attracted to sad music?. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Garrido, S., & Schubert, E. (2015). Moody melodies: Do they cheer us up? A study of the effect of sad music on mood. Psychology of Music, 43(2), 244-261.
Larsen, R. J. (2000). Toward a science of mood regulation. Psychological Inquiry,11, 129–141. http://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1103_01.
Saarikallio, S. (2011). Music as emotional self-regulation throughout adulthood. Psychology of music, 39(3), 307-327.
Taruffi, L., & Koelsch, S. (2014). The paradox of music-evoked sadness: An online survey. PloS one, 9(10), e110490
Van den Tol, A. J., & Edwards, J. (2015). Listening to sad music in adverse situations: How music selection strategies relate to self-regulatory goals, listening effects, and mood enhancement. Psychology of music, 43(4), 473-494.
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