“My New Year’s resolution is to stop listening to it,’’ Allie Ellis, 25, a stylist at the Patrice Vinci salon on Newbury Street, said, tearing up at the thought of a recent breakup, and of Adele’s crushing opening lines, which she delivers with no backup singers or auto-tuning, just piano accompaniment.
“I heard that you’re settled down / That you found a girl and you’re married now / I heard that your dreams came true / Guess she gave you things I didn’t give to you.’’
“I love it, but it brings me to a place I don’t want to visit,’’ Ellis said. Even so, Ellis played it when she retrieved her belongings from her ex’s house. It makes her weep, not just about her relationship, but life itself. “I’m struggling to find my place in the world.’’
It’s the same for Julia Decarbuccia, 38, an Oak Square YMCA employee. She recalled many times walking in the cold and dark and being pitched into loneliness when “Someone Like You’’ played on her phone.
“I’d feel like I couldn’t connect to anyone,’’ Decarbuccia recalled. Eager not to cry in public, she reminded herself - and reminded herself again - “it’s only a song.’’
Well, maybe. But part of its power - although only part - relies on its well-known inspiration: the end of Adele’s 18-month relationship with a man she considered “The One,’’ and his subsequent engagement to another woman.
Since its release, “Someone Like You’’ has racked up the kind of numbers that make music producers cry, albeit with joy. It spent five weeks at the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 song chart, which measures radio play and sales; the Recording Industry Association of America certified the song triple platinum; and it has topped charts internationally. (Another Adele song, “Rolling in the Deep,’’ spent seven weeks atop the list, and the album including both songs, “21,’’ was Billboard’s top album in 2011.)
