The five stages of grief are torturous to battle through. The denial and the anger are the most frantic and fiery and therefore the easiest. The reality that it’s all over hasn’t quite sunk in yet. Once the desperation sets in for bargaining in the third stage, the turmoil really kicks in. Finality creeps around the corner. Once it’s fully realized, the long journey of depression sinks in. Once you reach acceptance, the grief may still linger but it becomes easier to manage. This is true for love just as much as it’s true in death, and R&B is the ideal genre to grapple with those feelings of romantic loss.
Consequently, Noisey has selected five songs across the illustrious history of rhythm and blues that’ll act as a safe haven in moments where you miss your old lover. In doing so, it highlights the universality of the genre and how it’s best suited to aid in that brutal grieving process.
5 R&B Songs for When You Miss Your Old Flame
‘Distant Lover’ by Marvin Gaye
“Distant Lover” is the defining record for when you lose the love of your life. The distance always hits first, the silence and the lack of tangibility. The fact that someone could vanish and you never see them again is enough to cause some people nightmares. At least in the age of social media, you can finagle your way into seeing what they’re up to lately.
But in 1973, Marvin Gaye had to live with the fact that they could be gone forever. As a result, all he’s left with is endless yearning. By the bridge, the Motown legend howls into the night, grappling with their distance. “When you left, you took all of me with you. My Lord, I wonder, do you want to hear me scream and plead? Please, please, oh please baby, come back and hold me, girl,” he breaks down in tears. Few songs in music history, let alone just in R&B, are capable of such raw emotional power.
‘Halfcrazy’ by Musiq Soulchild
Losing the love of our lives is destined to make us feel a little nuts. It’s even more disorienting when the relationship itself wasn’t even initially romantic. On the 2000s R&B classic “Halfcrazy”, Musiq Soulchild yearns for simpler days, the friend that he loved and how one spark of romance radically changed everything. “Now things are strange, nothing’s the same, and really I just want my friend back,” he laments. There’s the negotiation phase of the grieving process, anxiously trying to fix something that will never be the same again.
‘I’m A Mess’ by Anthony Hamilton
Anthony Hamilton shows just how bad rock bottom can be when you miss your ex on “I’m A Mess”. Many R&B records wallow in their sadness but few rival his borderline suicidal agony. Breaking up has left Hamilton a wreck, someone who could barely muster up the courage to want to get out of bed and live. The sudden tragedy of it all is evident in how he howls to the moon in his southern drawl. “I rather you slit me cross the throat, so I can die/Instead of leaving, no explanation, as to why/You don’t want me no more,” he mourns. Whenever you’re deep in the grieving process of a breakup, this is the R&B song to help cry it out.
‘Memory Of Our Love’ by Donny Hathaway
Eventually, you reach the point of acceptance when you lose someone you love. There’s no more fighting, the spirit is battered and decides it’s best to try and figure out what life looks like without them. It’s not an easy process in the slightest—those memories will stick with you for an eternity and you’re always going to be left with the ‘what ifs’ after the fact.
As much as R&B is a genre for undying romance and yearning, Donny Hathaway proved it could grapple with loss with grace. In “Memory Of Our Love”, he learns the one he used to love most has gotten married and moved on with her life. Ultimately, he admitted that he couldn’t be everything she wanted him to be, at least not when they were together. Maybe in another lifetime, the stars align at the right time or maybe they persevere just a little longer together.
Still, in a last-ditch effort, Hathaway pleads for one more night to love each other the way they used to . Afterwards, they’ll hold onto the memories. She can let them fade, while a part of himself will always hold on to what they had. The love will always remain, for better or worse. There’s a sense of gratitude that it happened at all. That’s a beautiful sentiment from one of R&B’s greatest voices.
‘The Love I Lost’ by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
In a similar vein of R&B acceptance, Teddy Pendergrass sighs about how a good thing got away from him. He’s miserable because it just couldn’t work out between them, too much bickering and not enough peaceful resolve. Ultimately, he suggests they go their separate ways. As much as he wants to preserve what they have, they know it’ll only spiral the same way it did before. It’s strikingly mature, especially for an artist like Pendergrass that thrived in steamy love songs like “Love T.K.O.“.
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