Five songs that exposed real-life betrayal
Music has always been a great way for people to express their emotions. Artists like Fleetwood Mac, George Harrison and Beyoncé have all used it as a way to get things off their chest.
A lot of the time, those emotions are pretty wholesome ones. Falling in love has always been one of the more indescribable feelings on the planet, as everyone seems to experience it, but very few are able to actually put the sensation into words. Falling out of love, though… well, it seems that that’s pretty easy to describe.
When artists go through a hard time, and they have someone they thought they loved or trusted betray them, where else should they turn but to the pockets of some angry music? Many a great artist has used their art in a bid to air out their dirty laundry, and the result is great tunes, paired with the absolute scandal which unfolds.
Why not enjoy the gossip a little bit more, as we dive into some of the songs that musicians have written in a bid to expose real-life betrayal.
Five songs that exposed real-life betrayal
Beyoncé – ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’
This is a song which broke the internet before the term “breaking the internet” was a thing. Beyoncé and Jay-Z are one of music’s biggest power couples, and they’ve always presented as a pretty unified front. That’s why it was so shocking to everyone when Beyoncé released her album Lemonade, a record that seemed to allude to a period when her relationship damn near fell apart.
One of the most damning songs on the album was ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’, which saw Beyoncé team up with Jack White to deliver an attitude-packed, guitar-heavy and confrontational song directed towards her husband. In it, she calls him out for cheating, and says he needs to be careful because if it happens again, she’ll leave. For a moment, the world stood still, and everyone was glued to their phones as they watched who are potentially one of the biggest power couples in the world almost fall apart.
Lily Allen – ‘West End Girl’
Perhaps not the same stature as Beyoncé and Jay-Z, but still a very famous couple was Lily Allen and David Harbour. The two were together for a while, and as far as the public was concerned, everything was fine and dandy; however, that wasn’t the case. With a surprise album, Lily Allen laid out all the gory details of how she and her husband had split because of his infidelity.
There are a lot of songs from her album West End Girl that lay out the betrayal she went through, but it only seems appropriate to shine a spotlight on the title track, which goes into detail about how much the couple committed to one another, only for Harbour to throw it away. Continuing to add to the devastating blows which are scattered across this album, Allen has started performing the record live, and in doing so wraps herself in the receipts of things that her husband allegedly bought for other women.
Fleetwood Mac – ‘You Make Loving Fun’
If you’re ever looking for good songs about breaking up, look no further than Fleetwood Mac. The mess of love and loss that made up the band spills into their music and results in the development of songs that are nasty, forgiving, blase, and all things in between. The only songwriter from the band who took a relatively optimistic approach to music was Christine McVie, which you can hear on songs like ‘You Make Loving Fun’.
However, while this song might look like a wholesome declaration of adoration, dig a little deeper. While McVie was in a relationship with John McVie at the time, there are many who believe that the song isn’t about him, and is instead about the man that she was having an affair. This was Curry Grant, the band’s lighting director, and there are a lot of listeners who believe this sweet ode to loving is actually about the bright spark that existed between the two of them.
Bruce Springsteen – ‘Brilliant Disguise’
The track ‘Brilliant Disguise’ is believed to be a semi-biographical track that Springsteen wrote about the crumbling nature of his first marriage to Julianne Phillips. In the track, he sings about not truly knowing who the person standing next to him is. The song twists and turns in meaning, as it seems to hint that both his ex-wife and Springsteen himself are the problem. Generally, this is a song of betrayal, but it also became an unlikely ode to love when The Boss started singing it with his current wife, Patti Scialfa.
“I guess it sounds like a song of betrayal; who’s that person sleeping next to me, who am I?” said Springsteen. “Do I know enough about myself to be honest with that person? But a funny thing happens: songs shift their meanings when you sing them, they shift their meanings in time. They shift their meanings with who you sing them with. When you sing this song with someone you love, it turns into something else.”
George Harrison – ‘This Guitar (Can’t Keep From Crying)’
The majority of songs about betrayal pertain to former lovers, and lord knows Harrison had plenty of life experience to draw from in this regard, given his wife, Pattie Boyd, left him for Eric Clapton.
However, one of his biggest tracks about betrayal didn’t actually touch upon his private life, and instead focused on those who intruded on it. ‘This Guitar (Can’t Keep From Crying)’ is about how journalists harassed him while he was going through a difficult period in his life, and it makes for a very interesting exposé on how poorly the press treats celebrities.
“I always think people will give others more credit than they do,” said Harrison, “So I assumed they’d know I’m in bad voice but still feel the music’s plentiful and good. I wrote that song about being stuck on a limb, and being down, but not out.”
