It is a little-known fact that tired, boring Valentine's music increases the risk of heart attacks.

Well, it’s Valentine’s Day again. And I don’t know about you, but I’m a little tired of the worn-out love songs put on EVERY mix on February 14th. I’m not saying Etta James and Journey don’t have their merits, but I’ve taken the time to put together a more independent playlist for those who want some real good music with real good lyrics. And for those who don’t have a schnookems this Valentine’s Day, I also compiled a break-up/single/I hate you mix. All in good taste, of course.

“You’re More Awesome Than Me” Songs

1. “Thirteen” – Ben Kweller

A love song from ole’ Ben to his wife, about when they first met and “had passionate make-outs with passionate freak-outs”. Lucky.

2. “Til’ Kingdom Come” – Coldplay

“Say you’ll come and set me free, say you’ll wait for me”. I’ll wait for you, Chris Martin. All day.

3. “Home” – Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

This is a fairly straightforward song, which talks about home being wherever their love is. Plus, you’re privy to a conversation in which Alexander tells Jane how he fell in love with her. It’s very awkward.

4. “My Favorite Book” – Stars

One of the most simple, true songs I’ve ever heard about two people. “I can read you, you’re my favorite book.”

5. “Such Great Heights” – Postal Service

I can still believe that Ben Gibbard, who sadly is now engaged to Zooey Deschanel, is singing these words to me – “And I have to speculate that God himself did make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the clay”

6. “Mushaboom” – Feist

Not only is this ridiculously catchy, but it’s a narrative of a young couple “collecting their moments one by one.”

7. “Summertime Clothes” – Animal Collective

Nothing more simple than “I wanna walk around with you.” Plus Animal Collective is amazing.

8. “From Debris” – Matt Pond PA

This is a hopeful love song, about taking your own life ruined by past relationships and using it to form a new one. “From debris, you and me could start something.”

9. “You’re the Good Things” – Modest Mouse

This song is sort of about the bittersweetness of a relationship—for example, icing on a cake, but the cake is at his funeral. Or, “you’re the flowers in my house when my allergies come out.” But even if they bug you, they’re still the good things.

10. “Dogs” – Page France

This song has lyrics about being made for each other and becoming inexplicably part of each other. “If you go blind just trust I was made out of your dust. You were made out of my dust, and the wind will carry us.”

11. “Eyes” – Rogue Wave

This song is kind of cheesy, so I won’t even type out the lyrics. But guess what, it’s cheesy enough for me to like it.

12. “I Love My B****” – Busta Rhymes

The title says it all.

“I’m Alone” Songs

1. “I Would Be Sad” – The Avett Brothers

Oh, the Avetts. A song about a girl leaving him, and them being the “predictable young couple changing moving on.”

2. “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” – Stars

“There’s nothing but time and a face that you lose. I chose to feel it and you couldn’t choose.” This song really is a big middle finger to whoever broke your heart.

3. “Where Does the Good Go?” – Tegan and Sara

Oh Tegan and Sara, the indie twin sisters. They wrote a song about love breaking the seal of always thinking you would be “real happy and healthy, calm and strong.”

4. “Skinny Love” – Bon Iver

Justin Vernon, the musical mastermind behind Bon Iver, writes “I’ll be holding all the tickets, and you’ll be owing all the fines.” Only he could have combined traffic violations and wasted love so well.

5. “Breakin’ Up” – Rilo Kiley

The resounding hook of this song yells “It feels good to be free.” Well a-m-e-n. Enjoy your singledom.

6. “Knife” – Grizzly Bear

Advice – don’t listen to this song if you’re actually sad. Because it’s ridiculously depressing, I mean come on. “With every blow comes another lie. Can you feel the knife?”

7. “Fight Song” – Appleseed Cast

A good song for someone that’s been in an untrusting, accusatory relationship. “We’re finding fault; You kissed her, you slept with him, you didn’t care.” Harsh.

8. “Hand on Your Heart” – Jose Gonzalez

“Well it’s one thing to fall in love, but another to make it last.” Ain’t that the truth?

9. “The Calculation” – Regina Spektor

This song is about a relationship that’s lasted but has hardened into meaninglessness. “We saw our hearts were little stones.” Plus this is quite the toe-tapper. Regina knows what’s up.

10. “Change is Hard” – She & Him

Well, I know I already bashed Zooey Deschanel for dating Ben Gibbard, but I won’t deny her side project with M. Ward has great music. We’ve all let go of someone we wish we hadn’t, but eventually we have to come to grips with it. “I know he’s yours, and he’ll never belong to me again.”

11. “How My Heart Behaves” – Feist

This one actually is sad. Leslie Feist wrote “a cold heart will burst if mistrusted first. A calm heart will break when given a shake.”

12. “Scrubs” – TLC

“I don’t want your number, no. I don’t wanna meet you nowhere. A scrub is a guy that can get no love from me.” Yes, TLC. Sing your hearts out.

Contributor

Is there anything to celebrate on Valentine’s Day?

It’s the day when vans and trucks fan out to schools, offices, and homes across the country.

They carry the manifestation of our culturally approved affections, typically from men to women.

The women practice their reaction of surprise, embarrassment, and joy when the delivery comes.

The men secretly rehearse a nonchalant grin, masking their satisfaction at gaining approval.

All this daydreamt anticipation then comes to fruition on the fourteenth.

At some level, most adults are aware that Valentine’s Day is largely a creation of those that sell carnations, confections, and greeting cards.

It’s a way to prop up sagging sales between Christmas and Easter. It’s marketed as a celebration of idealized romantic love, the kind of love can only be expressed in white lettering against pink cardboard.

As dreamy as it is, this holiday also comes with a warning.

Only with trinkets can you expect to achieve this level of bliss. Only with tokens can you hope to keep your mate satisfied.

There is nothing new about advertising using worry and fear as motivators, though it is particularly crass to imply that the health of a romantic relationship might rest on buying some piece of jewelry.

But Zales and Hallmark make this hard sell only a few times a year.

Everyday is Valentine’s Day for drug companies, who are all too happy to make you sane, thin, and attractive.

Never mind that our jobs run us ragged while paying less money, that much of our food is garbage, that the human relationships we see again and again in our media are reduced to shallow caricatures.

Any depression, loneliness, or insecurity you feel is an illness, a chemical imbalance. We are Americans, after all, autonomous individuals, unaffected by our society.

And that insecurity, that fear is precisely the wedge that drives us and keeps us apart much of the time, perhaps more so for college students than others.

So much emphasis is placed on ‘my’ own achievement, my grades, my performance, my appearance, my career. Many of us will never be as freely self-centered as we are during our time here at school.

Answers are supposedly found by looking inward at the expense of looking outward.

Even as we walk the halls of this shrine to the ego, there are some few who try to bridge the gulf between us.

The deck is surely stacked against them. When people are plagued with insecurities, when our culture cherishes individualism, when people all around us forgo community, career, and family for self-satisfaction, it’s amazing that anyone bothers to build intimate relationships at all.

In fact, you might say it is worthy of a holiday.