The Greatest Heartbreaking, Break Up Song Ever?

Is this Bonnie Raitt hit THE MOST POWERFUL break up song ever recorded?

Born 77 years ago, November 8th, 1949, Bonny Raitt is a trailblazer, performer, writer, gifted singer, slide guitarist and session player.

I Can’t Make You Love Me offers a profound emotion we all share—the ache of not being loved by someone we love. For some people, this is a memory, even a longing. For others, it’s the story of their life.

Raitt embodies this song, and from its opening lines (with the incredible Bruce Hornsby on piano), there is no denying its clarity and power.

Then comes the second verse…

I’ll close my eyes / then I won’t see / the love you don’t feel when you’re holding me / morning will come and I’ll do what’s right / just give me ’til then to give up this fight / and I will give up this fight

'Cause I can't make you love me If you don't

You can't make your heart feel Something it won't

Here in the dark In these final hours

I will lay down my heart And I'll feel the power

But you won’t / No, you won't

'Cause I can't make you love me If you don’t

Every time I sing this song, the second verse into the chorus, I get teary…

Written by songwriters Mike Reid (a former Cincinnati Bengal defensive tackle!) and Allen Shamblin—the ache builds and then lifts harder like a beautiful yet resilient broken heart into an exquisitely painful chorus—refusing to resolve...

Reid said the title line came from a news story where a guy ‘got himself in trouble,’ lost his wife and his family and said, ‘Well, you can’t make a woman love you if she don’t.’

In Bonnie's own words: “I mean, 'I Can't Make You Love Me' is no picnic. I love that song, so does the audience. So it's almost a sacred moment when you share that, that depth of pain with your audience. Because they get really quiet, and I have to summon ... some other place in order to honor that space.”

So I honour the song here—and the shared, sacred human emotion.

And now I'll offer an opinion: we are loved.