A 12-year-old Dido Throwback Tells You What Song to Listen To After You Breakup.

I know you think that I shouldn't still love you, 

Or tell you that.

But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it 

where's the sense in that? 

The music we make today is well-produced. They are all high fidelity. There are layers there which I don't think I heard (notice) before. But the lyrics though? They wouldn't make Dylan smile. A recent conversation with a friend who had just broken up and needed some pop culture remedy to help with the grieving revealed that even though there's plenty of music you can dance to, there's little you can be wistful with. It pains me to think that my friend tried Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball and then Roxette's It Must Have Been Love to get through her 'condition'. And then I remembered this little number.

Yes, you know it. Don't pretend otherwise now. Dido burst onto the scene with this number. Sure she sang a verse on Eminem's Stan but it's this song that was stuck in your head. And it's not so much the song, it's the feeling of the song. Of being in love with someone who doesn't love you back and yet you can't stop. This frustrating fault in your heart's logic has never been voiced better than in this lone song by Dido.

I will go down with this ship 

And I won't put my hands up and surrender 

There will be no white flag above my door 

I'm in love and always will be 

The lyrics here weren't so much penned but felt. As if it's just a recollection of something you felt in the past. This song gets stuck in your mind like a bloody reflex action. And that's not an exaggeration. I first heard it on a cassette. Yet here it is on my iTunes playlist after all these years. Dido's voice still careworn but not tragic. The music nearly innocuous. The arrangement isn't something that will stay with you. The medley will be long forgotten but you will never forget the lyrics. And hopefully, if more people nursing broken hearts manage to find it, it will only bring them some comfort.

And when we meet 

Which I'm sure we will 

All that was there

Will be there still 

I'll let it pass 

And hold my tongue 

And you will think 

That I've moved on.... 

Here's a fairly recent Dido/AR Rahman collab I forgot I liked and I think you will enjoy it too. 

I hope to see more of her in the future and I hope she lends her excellent songwriting skills to others. God knows, if she were a poet, she'd still eke out a good living.