The Breakup song was released in 1981 and peaked at #15 on the Billboard 100. Greg Kihn would later have a top hit ten hit “Jeopardy” when it reached #2 in 1983. Kihn had 7 songs in total in the top 100.
The song was off of the album RocKihnRoll.
This is an interview with Greg Kihn in 2011 about writing the song.
Oh, yeah. There are times in your life that the way is clear. I remember coming home from a gig with the guys. We were in a van, and we pulled up to where I used to live. All of my stuff was piled up on the lawn, and it was raining.
I thought, “Oh, God. My first wife had done it.” We pulled up to the house, and I remember Steve, the bass player, looked at me and just went, “Well, you might as well just keep on going. You’re not going in there.”
There was a Japanese restaurant. I went up there with Stevie, and we were pounding down hot sake. I didn’t know where else to go. It was a cold, rainy night, and we were getting toasted. There was an old Japanese dude there at the sake bar, and he kept saying, “They don’t write ‘em like that anymore.” I thought, Yeah, damn. They don’t, do they? So we got the idea, we wrote that song probably in 15 minutes. All of the great songs are written quickly, by the way.
You have to take a lesson that the stuff that’s real, it’s in you and it’s got to come out like that song. I’d really broken up that very day. It wasn’t like I was trying to feel like what’s a guy like when he’s broken up. I was living it. When things are real, they’re always better than when they’re fiction, if you can dig what I’m saying.
The Breakup Song
We had broken up for good just an hour before
Ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
And now I’m staring at the bodies as they’re dancing ‘cross the floor
Ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
And then the band slowed the tempo and the music took me down
Ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
It was the same old song, with a melancholy sound
Ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
They don’t write ’em like that anymore
They just don’t write ’em like that anymore
We’d been living together for a million years
Ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
But now it feels so strange out in the atmospheres
Ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
And then the jukebox plays a song I used to know
Ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
And now I’m staring at the bodies as they’re dancing so slow
Ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
They don’t write ’em like that anymore
They don’t write ’em like that anymore
Oh
Hey
Now I wind up staring at an empty glass
Ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
‘Cause it’s so easy to say that you’ll forget your past
Ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
They don’t write ’em like that anymore, no
They just don’t write ’em like that anymore
They don’t write ’em like that anymore
They just don’t write ’em like that anymore
They just don’t, no, they don’t
No, no, uh-uh
Jeopardy may have been the bigger hit- wow I knew it was a hit but #2 wow… The Break Up song was their best. At least he wasn’t a one hit wonder.. a two hit wonder.
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I couldn’t believe it either. I didn’t like Jeopardy much…The Break Up song is definitely the better of the two.
He is a fun guy…I read some interviews with him.
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When i was in college- early 80’s he played at another local college at their band blast. Our college got Michael Stanley Band.
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I saw a quote by him that he didn’t go by the music styles of the time when the Break Up Song came out….
I just looked the Michael Stanley Band… He Can’t Love You is familiar… The sax made a comeback during that time.
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This is our Town- was the Michael Stanley Band song I recall- he was from Cleveland…. I don’t think I have an album from either of them.
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Really great rocker with an 80s edge. It’s tight and melodic and it has that certain attitude of a skinny guy or gal in tight straight leg jeans, red Chuck Taylors and a thin stripped red and black sleeveless shirt, jumping around and playing bad ass rhythm guitar. My kind of song.
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I liked it the instant I heard it. It’s one of those songs that is instantly recognizable… when we would cover it everyone got into it.
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I liked his singles well enough, didn’t listen to anything much by him other than what was on radio. I found it interesting his career was quite similar to Kim Mitchell’s- moderately successful singer/musician, bigger in his home city than elsewhere (in Kihn’s case the San Francisco bay area), then kind of gives it all up to become a prominent radio DJ in his city for years.
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That is a good comparison… I’ve only listened to his radio hits also. This one I like the best…
He is a fun interview…I give him that. Seems like a fun guy…
I read about the DJ part…I guess he got tired of the road.
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I am writing about this song on Friday for my Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Music challenge.
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It’s a good one. It’s one of the limited few I liked in the 80s. Good luck Jim I’ll be reading it.
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