Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Maybe you and me were never meant to be, but baby think of me once in awhile. That's from the WKRP theme sung by Steve Carlisle, the story of a break up where 'the price for finding me was losing you' as he tells it.  According to Wikipedia "WKRP in Cincinnati is an American sitcom that featured the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show was created by Hugh Wilson and was based upon his experiences working in advertising sales at Top 40 radio station WQXI in Atlanta. Many of the characters and even some of the stories (including season 1 episode 7, "Turkeys Away") are based on people and events at WQXI."

Andy Travis

Andy Travis is played by Gary Sandy and "For the most part, program director Andy Travis serves as the straight man for the eccentric staff of the station he has been hired to run. Before coming to WKRP, he had an unblemished record of turning around failing radio stations, but meets his match in his wacky staff members, of whom he becomes distressingly fond. The show's opening theme song is about Andy and his decision to settle down in Cincinnati." so continues Wikipedia, and so the fictional Andy apparently had a breakup before joining WKRP in Cincinnati.

I was listening to a real radio station one weekend, doing a bunch of stuff in the garage and tuned into KSAN and I noticed how so much rock and roll was about love, relationships and breaking up.  I started writing down the songs but lost the list but still remember a lot of them, and they're ones I've always liked.  But it's not just rock&roll, and it's not just music, just look at all those romance novels with Fabio on the cover, magazines at the checkout stand, TV shows, Museums are filled with Romantic art and sculpture, libraries are full of romantic literature, just consider the great themes of music, drama, dance and opera. Art imitates life and life is full of romance, and breakups.

ATHF Carl with The Foreigner Belt

I listened to so much Foreigner that weekend I really started feeling like a Dirty White Boy.  Cold As Ice is one of those troubled songs, there's so many, like Bon Jovi's You Give Love A Bad Name .  And what about this ?  J. Geils Band - Love Stinks .  Hmm, musta been the OD of hair bands that made me feel that way.

Afghans

I always thought this was a beautiful song, tender, not sure what it was about, not sure if they were breaking up or making up, but after seeing this Whitesnake video Is This Love  I kinda didn't respect myself in the morning, like my skin had a rancid, sweaty, smoky, cologne-hair product sheen, ew. Sometimes they know the love is bad but gotta have it anyway like this one from Pat Benatar Heartbreaker.    Whew, enough hair bands.

Patti LaBelle

Kind of a softer emotion running through this Golden Oldie by The Stylistics Break Up To Make Up , tender, vulnerable.  Here's Hall & Oates with She's Gone , and I was crazy about this one for a while, Keyshia Cole, Enough Of No Love ft. Lil Wayne.  And I can't let this one go by, Sunshine Anderson - Heard It All Before , I love it.  One more that shows both sides of a separation.  Patti LaBelle - On My Own ft. Michael McDonald , it tells the story.  I couldn't include them all but you get the idea, WKRP is after all a Rock&Roll Station even if it is at the bottom of the Chart, it's where I live.

There's always a good story to a love affair, a relationship, a marriage and a break up, any kind of loss, health, a job, a situation, a friend, there's a lot of emotion, blame, anger, hurt, guilt, injury, damage, regret, sometimes violence and always a price to pay.  Even when people get over it and 'move on with their life', there's still a memory, maybe a scar, some kind of evidence that there was something there, something shared until the other party took more than they gave, it's always the other party.  Then there's the “It's not you, it's me” excuse, has that ever helped mend a broken heart (thanks Rev. All Green) ?  Anyway, what's it all mean ?  Maybe you and me were never meant to be, but baby think of me once in awhile.