About the Song
By 2013, George Strait was well into the golden years of his career — no longer chasing hits, but choosing instead to reflect with grace, honesty, and emotional depth. On Love Is Everything, one of the standout tracks is “That’s What Breaking Hearts Do,” a soft-spoken but powerful song about the inevitable pain of parting ways and the subtle, everyday devastation it leaves behind.
Co-written by Strait and his son, Bubba Strait, the song is as restrained as it is revealing. The arrangement is built around delicate acoustic guitar, gentle percussion, and mournful steel guitar licks — classic George Strait, but with a slightly more introspective tone. It’s not designed for radio fireworks; it’s meant to sit with you, quietly, like the memory of someone walking away and not turning back.
Lyrically, “That’s What Breaking Hearts Do” doesn’t offer grand metaphors or poetic flourishes. Instead, it leans into the simple, painful truth of lost love — the silence after a goodbye, the emptiness where a voice used to be, and the reality that even when it isn’t violent or dramatic, heartbreak still stings. Strait delivers each line with a kind of emotional modesty — not crying out in pain, but stating the facts in a way that’s even more heartbreaking.
What gives the song its strength is the emotional restraint. There’s no bitterness, no blame. Just the quiet acknowledgment that people leave, hearts break, and that’s the way things sometimes unfold. And in that surrender to the truth, the song finds its most powerful moment: acceptance.
In the wider context of Love Is Everything, this track adds a deeper emotional layer. It’s not a song about falling in love — it’s about what happens when the music fades, when the lights go out, and when you’re left with only silence and memory. For fans of George Strait’s most sincere and reflective work, “That’s What Breaking Hearts Do” is a quietly devastating reminder that some of the deepest wounds are the ones you carry alone, with grace.