The night I threw my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s clothes into boxes and hauled them out to the garage, this song from Marianne Faithful’s album, Broken English, blared away on my sound system.

When I stole a twig from our little nest
And gave it to a bird with nothing in her beak,
I had my balls and my brains put into a vice
And twisted around for a whole fucking week.
Why’d ya do it, she said, why’d you let that trash
Get a hold of your cock, get stoned on my hash?

Marianne Faithful in the 1960's.

While it didn’t exactly offer solace, it provided catharsis.  The lyrics are hard, bold knife thrusts digging into an already open wound.  Nothing subtle about them.

What is subtle, and easy to miss, is that the point of view is that of the man who is the betrayer, not of the woman he has betrayed.

Whichever you are, the betrayed or the betrayer, the man or the woman, this song cuts through to the core of what you’re feeling and purges that caustic, rotting
poison from your heart.

Better to have Marianne Faithful carry it than you.

What music blares away for you when you need your soul cleansed of the destructive
demons of anger and guilt?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDDaidLPNZU