Theme
Songs about regret
Interpretations from our editorial team that explore this theme.
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Dominic Fike
White Keys
A reflection on a teenage relationship that lost out to fame, sung by someone who can now afford everything except the closeness he traded away
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AKMU
How can I love the heartbreak, you're the one I love
A refusal to romanticize a breakup, sung by someone who realizes mid-walk that loving you cannot include loving the loss of you
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Myles Smith
Stargazing
A breathless declaration of certainty to someone who turned out to be the right person all along, asking only that they not break what's finally been recognised
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Sam Fender & Olivia Dean
Rein Me In (Edit)
A duet about drinking through heartbreak because stopping would mean facing what you broke, and the person who left because being loved scared them
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HAMO
Akrapovic
A late-night scooter ride through Seoul becomes a list of small reasons a narrator gives himself for not marrying the girl on the back
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Zara Larsson
Ruin My Life
A breakup song that flips the usual script: she doesn't want her ex back to feel safe, she wants the chaos back because the calm is worse
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Drake
Club Paradise
A homecoming monologue about the cost of leaving, where success has replaced the people and city that made the artist feel known