Why Do Sad Love Songs Hit So Hard?

So…umm. I wanna talk about sad love songs today. You know, the ones that make you want to cry into your pillow at 2 a.m. Not that I’ve ever done that. Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Loved, Adele’s Someone Like You, Sam Smith’s ballads. Songs that break you open even if your love life is perfectly fine.

Why do they do that? Why do these songs climb to the very top of the charts?

I think it’s because heartbreak feels universal. Everyone, at some point, has loved and lost — whether through breakups, death, or just drifting apart. And when you hear someone put that kind of pain into words, it’s like they’re reading your diary out loud.

But here’s the thing. I don’t believe love should be about suffering. I don’t think love equals drama, tears, and chaos. Love, to me, should be safe, steady, and real. And yet… I still love these songs. Because they let me feel without consequence. They give me permission to sit with emotions I might otherwise hide.

And for me, it’s not even about thinking of someone I’ve lost. When I listen, I don’t picture a person or a situation. Instead, I step into the song like it’s a story. I try to understand what the writer felt when they penned the words, what the singer carried in their voice when they sang it raw, and, if I’m watching the video, what the director was trying to show me. Whose story are they telling? Where did the inspiration come from? What do they want me to learn or feel? That’s the part that fascinates me.

It also reminds me of another favourite: Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinéad O’Connor. That song and video were so raw — just her face and her voice carrying the entire weight of loss. Later she said she was thinking about her mum who had recently died. But when I first heard it, I thought of my own mum, who was living in another country at that time. I was only in my early teens and I sometimes felt lost, like I was carrying a huge weight on my shoulders without her. Some friends would say, “Oh, you can do whatever you want now,” and blah blah… but I didn’t want that. I’d much rather have had my mum telling me what to do, or even telling me off, than not having her around. The lyrics made me miss her so much, even before I knew that Sinéad herself was singing about her mum. To this day, that song transports me back to the exact place I was when I first heard it. That’s the power of music — it becomes part of our memory, like a bookmark in our lives.

Maybe human beings are just wired to equate love with pain. Maybe it’s culture, maybe it’s memory — after all, pain sticks longer than joy. We replay heartbreak like a film, but we don’t always replay the quiet, happy moments with the same intensity.

And that’s why sad songs win. They validate the ache. They remind us we’re not alone. Aaand, they make young people believe that love is suffering.

See, the point is… music might romanticise heartbreak, but we don’t have to. We can enjoy the songs, shed the tears, step into someone else’s story, and still choose love without suffering in our own lives.