America’s mass culture provides endless road maps for navigating the end of romance. By the time you’re a teenager you’ve probably hummed along to hundreds or thousands of songs about heartbreak. Pick a decade. Maybe one relationship ends in the passionate songs of Fleetwood Mac. Or the lonesome and orchestral country of Beck. The juvenile vengefulness of Ben Folds Five. Or just the sweet soulfulness of The Jarmels singing “A Little Bit of Soap.” There’s the movies, too. Swingers would do for a comic take on it. Or hundreds of others. Any American with access to Spotify and Netflix could be ready for epic romantic disaster by the time they are 14.
We’re not so well prepared for grief. Popular culture shies away from it. And when grief finally peeks through, undisguised, in songs like Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton, the weight is almost unbearable. You hear it and realize why grief hides from us there. You can’t sell commercials against it.
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