Harry Feay
It’s been just over a week since Valentine’s Day! With the day of love far in the past, it may feel like love itself has gone with it, almost as if all the lovey-doveyness of the day has vanished.
My advice, you should listen to anti-love songs that make you feel better about not being in love or the lack of love, and luckily for us, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the perfect show to do just that.
Throughout the shows four seasons, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend managed to take its viewers on a journey through the many stages of love. From love triangles to self-love to anti-love, it was a rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish.
Today I present to you six songs from the show that perfectly encapsulates the term “anti-love”, and that should make anyone, not in a relationship, or still reeling from their post-valentines blues realize that love is overrated.
“We’ll Never Have Problems Again”
“We’ll Never Have Problems Again” is a homage to the 1970s Funk genre that manages to perfectly summarise why love isn’t the answer to everything. The song takes place in the second season of the show, just after Rebecca and Josh have decided to become a couple.
There recent coupling has made them delusional (perfectly highlighted by Heather in the song) into believing that being in love, and being together will immediately solve all the problems they’re facing when this isn’t the case.
“We’ll Never Have Problems Again” manages to highlight a real issue that couples face in relationships; the fact that being in a relationship doesn’t automatically mean that everything is suddenly okay, as well as highlighting that people don’t need to be in relationships to be happy.
“Without Love You Can Save The World”
The idea of not needing love and relationships to be happy is continued in “Without Love You Can Save The World”, which sees Rebecca sing about all the things she could have done with all the time that she’s spent being in love, and pursuing relationships.
“I could have used that time to cure leukemia
I could have used that time to clean the seas
I could have taught some teens awareness of bulimia
I could have saved the pandas, whales, and bees.”
While Rebecca (and the song) gets a little carried away with just how much can be done without love, the song still manages to show that love isn’t always the most important thing that needs to be pursued and that we are still able to contribute to the world in meaningful ways without it.
“Love Kernels”
Season 2 kicks off with the Beyoncé inspired “Love Kernels”, which sees Rebecca try to justify her relationship with Josh. While he wants to keep things slow and casual, Rebecca wants to take their relationship further and to the next stage, and is in denial that Josh doesn’t want this relationship to be at the same stage as her.
Love and relationships can sometimes be very one-sided. What one person might see as a romantic gesture might be nothing from the other, and sometimes we’re so desperate to make a relationship work that we take those small moments and build them up into something much bigger.
“Love Kernels” breaks this all down, showing that Rebecca’s denial isn’t good for her and that we can sometimes blind ourselves finding true love, by pursuing relationships that aren’t equal.
“Gratutitous Karaoke Moment”
“Gratuitous Karaoke Moment” is the perfect parody to the infamous rom-com scene of two people, singing a karaoke song together and then falling in love throughout the song. It happens more often than you think: 27 Dresses; How to lose a guy in 10 days; When Harry met Sally; even High School Musical“.
Taking place in the Season 4 episode, “I’m almost over you”, which sees Nathanial (Scott Michael Foster) dream up a rom-com scenario in which he and Maya (Esther Povitsky) try and make their exes jealous and pretend to be together.
The song doesn’t make any particular comments about love, but instead continually pokes fun at the way love and relationships are formed in rom-coms. From their uncomfortable body-language to forced lousy singing, this scene and song manage to parody rom-com love and the strange situations in which people fall in love.
Maya:
“I usually hate singing in public…
Nathaniel:
Yeah, I can’t believe I’m holding a mic…
Maya:
Relatably, we’re both off-key…
Nathaniel:
But it’s the part of the film that everyone likes!
Maya and Nathaniel:
It’s our gratuitous karaoke moment!
We sound really bad – but look!
We’re starting to sway!”
“Buttload of Cats”
‘Buttload of Cats’ is all about embracing being single (for good), and accepting the inevitable, that you should go out and buy loads of Cats to keep you company instead!
“Buttload of Cats” is Rebecca taking the idea of not being in a relationship to its most extreme level and wanting to become a crazy cat lady, by visiting the ‘Lonely Lady Cat Store’ and buying every cat there, despite warnings from the cats themselves.
The song expertly dramatizes the idea of being single and sinking all of your new free time into a hobby. In this instance, having and caring for a cat. While at the same time, even parodying the stereotype of the lonely cat lady.
“Settle For Me”
“Settle for Me” is a romantic Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers themed number that shows how much of a great person Greg (Santino Fontana) is for Rebecca to settle for.
“Darling, just settle for me.
I think you’ll have to agree
We make quite a pair!
I know I’m only second place in this game
But like 2% milk
Or Seitan Beef
I almost taste the same!”
“Settle for Me” deconstructs romantic love and instead points out that sometimes people are in relationships because they’ve just settled for each other. It uses the hyper-romanticized theming of a classic 1930s Astaire-Rogers musical, with the hyper-realistic side of love which has people’ settling’ for one another.
Do you agree with our picks? Please send us your suggestions to our Twitter @Fuzzable.
