“Breakin' Up” by Violent Femmes

"Breakin' Up" was the lead single from New Times, the Violent Femmes' sixth album, in 1994, though the song itself was hardly new: Gordon Gano, the band's singer, had written it years before it finally got its turn. He wrote words and music, plays guitar and sings it.

It's also a snapshot of a lineup in flux. New Times was the first Femmes record without original drummer Victor DeLorenzo, and his replacement, Guy Hoffman, plays drums and percussion here and adds his voice to Gano's. Brian Ritchie handles acoustic bass guitar and reed organ and takes the guitar solo, and Gano and Ritchie produced it themselves, with David Vartanian recording and mixing and Dan Chase assisting. The video picked up a little MTV play and later turned up on the band's DVD Permanent Record - Live & Otherwise.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.