Blood strikes such a chord because the heartache it mines feels at once deeply personal and universal. “I don’t write confessional songs,” Dylan told Cameron Crowe during the release of the immersive (and, in the context of this quote, ironically named) Biograph. But Dylan himself has steadily denied that his masterpiece is autobiographical, even saying instead that it’s based on … Chekhov’s short stories. The couple’s son, Jakob, reportedly believes that Blood is about his parents.

Critics have long assumed that the album is about Dylan’s separation from his wife, Sara. The inspiration for Bob Dylan’s masterful Blood on the Tracks has always been debated. Most heartbreaking line: “Say for me that I’m all right, though things get kind of slow / She might think that I’ve forgotten her, don’t tell her it isn’t so” “Tyrone” is named for one of an unnamed deadbeat lover’s numerous deadbeat friends: “Every time we go somewhere,” Badu purrs with lethal authority, “I gotta reach down in my purse / To pay your way and your homeboy’s way and sometimes your cousin’s way.” It is the gender-flipped riposte to Friday’s “Bye, Felicia,” and in fact turned up as a joke in 2000’s Next Friday it “followed me thru my career like an obsessed X boyfriend,” as Badu put it on Instagram in 2017, while shouting out her backup singers, whose sardonic and sublime “Call him!” chant is the third-best moment. The second-best moment on this viciously sultry slow jam, the crown jewel of Erykah Badu’s 1997 album Live, is the stupendous opening line: “I’m gettin’ tired of your shit / You don’t ever buy me nothin’.” The first-best moment is all the women in the crowd immediately shrieking with delight and, one fears, recognition. Most heartbreaking line: “I just want it to be, you and me, like it used to be, baby / But ya don’t know how to act” After all, breakup songs resonate only when you know what it’s like to lose in love. Maybe you’ll gain a greater appreciation for your current relationship. If you’re happily attached, you can still dive in-these are some of the greatest songs ever recorded, and that’s true whether you’re in your feelings or not. So if you’re lonely, fire up our playlist and cry along as you read our thoughts on each entrant. There was only one rule for the final ranking: just one song per artist was included to avoid Dolly Parton or even Drake from dominating.

The list spans several decades and many different moods, but all are rooted in some type of pain. Below, you’ll find our ranking of the 50 greatest breakup songs of all time, as voted on by our staff. And in honor of Valentine’s Day, we decided to dig deep into the genre.

We here at The Ringer believe that since heartache comes in many forms, so should the breakup song. What makes a song a “breakup song”? Does it have to be empowering, à la “I Will Survive” or most of the songs on Lemonade? Should it be for the lonely, like Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” or Bob Dylan’s “If You See Her, Say Hello”? Does it have to address the breakup in the lyrics? (Taylor Swift has many entrants in this category, and Marvin Gaye penned an entire album about his divorce.) What about songs with a famous backstory, like “Cry Me a River” or any track off of Rumours?

Best break up songs