Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Lenny Welch (#34 in 1970), Partridge Family (#28 in 1972), Neil Sedaka (#1 in 1962, #8 in 1976)

(Slow version:)
You tell me that you're leavin', I can't believe it's true!
Girl, there's just no livin' without you.

Don't take your love away from me.
Don't you leave my heart in misery.
'Cause if you go, then I'll be blue,
Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do.

Remember when you held me tight,
And you kissed me all through the night.
Think of all that we've been through,
And Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do.

They say that Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do
Now I know, I know that it's true.
Don't say, that this is the end.
Instead of breakin' up I wish that we were makin' up again.

I beg of you, don't say goodbye;
Can't we give our love just one more try?
Come on baby, let's start a-new,
Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do,
Breakin' up is, oh, so hard to do.

In his daily mini-concert on June 12, 2020, Sedaka recalled that the song's iconic scat intro ("come-a come-a down, dooby doo down down")
was a result of him and Greenfield being unable to come up with a lyric for that section of the song and Sedaka improvising a vocalise,
which they liked so much that they kept it in the finished product.

Though it was originally an uptempo song, Lenny Welch (best known for his 1963 hit version of " Since I Fell for You ") re-recorded the song, reimagined as a torch ballad.
Welch had approached Sedaka to see if he had any songs in his repertoire that fit Welch's style; as most of the songs Sedaka had written with his usual partner Howard Greenfield
were upbeat pop songs, he did not, but playing around on the piano, he discovered "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" worked well as a slow ballad, so he wrote a new introduction and offered
it to Welch. It peaked at #34 on the US Billboard charts and #8 on the easy listening chart in January 1970.