I’m so bored about Taylor Swift writing about her exes. But I was wondering if there are any classic songs about famous exes. Ideally, I wouldn’t count ones where the ex is in the band, so that excludes some classics by Abba and Fleetwood Mac (and maybe Big Thief but I don’t know)
Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain, maybe. But we don’t know who that is about, and she once said it’s not about any one ex in particularly. This is the thing, there’s a difference between writing about an ex, and just using the general emotions of a breakup to write a fictional song. Swift seems to do the former, in the way she even quotes conversations with her exes, but we don’t actually know if any of it is true or completely made up. But it appears to be true.
Appreciate this is an indie forum, and most indie songwriters don’t go out with famous people, but I’m hoping for some good suggestions for a playlist.
This is an obvious one, though not my cup of tea:
Jack Antonoff singing abut Scarlett Johansson
About PJ (Harvey not ‘and Duncan’)
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Already interested to know how many of these are actually confirmed vs theorised
Is Joanna Newsom’s HOOM all about her break up with Bill Callahan/Smog?
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Obviously not gonna link to it for the sake of us all but isn’t there a RHCP song on Californication about Mel C?
This crops up a lot, but just in case you’d not heard, Toxic was written by Cathy Dennis about her ex TV’s Supervet Noel FItzpatrick
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Zooey Deschanel. Can’t say he didn’t get any mileage out of it
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Verse three is about Bill Murray
Macca breaking up with Jane Asher.
Excellent shout. One of my favourite bits of trivia.
Don’t speak by No Doubt is an intra band break up song if memory serves
The Nick Cave & Paul Simon ones are confirmed
Carly Simon did once say that You’re So Vain is about Warren Beatty but in later interviews said it’s not about anyone in particular - which fits the point of the song to keep exes guessing
The others… dunno
Imagine an ex writing a song about you and then breaking an apartheid boycott to record it
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Ms Jackson by Outkast is about Andre 3000’s ex Erykah Badu (or her Mum, more specifically, I suppose).
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probably about Ryan Adams
think there’s lines in later songs about Conor Oberst, but not sure if they ever actually dated
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