“Your Ex-lover is Dead” by Stars is a peculiar “pop” song. Found on 2004’s Set Yourself on Fire, “Your Ex” is both wistful and mesmerizing in its combination of
musical arrangement and narrative.

Essentially orchestral, the initial pace of the song, provided by an intermittently struck bass drum, is slow and elegiac – something more akin to a funeral march. With its liberal use of strings and horns “Your Ex” is given an intimacy reserved for a small concert hall or private room. The almost whispered vocals of Torquil Campbell and Amy Milan along with a loosely strummed electric guitar and forceful snare drum give “Your Ex” its pop hook, but the song seems to bare a greater resemblance to a chamber music recital. Considering the title of the song and the lyrics, the choice of musical style is fitting. Mournful and ponderous, the music seems to capture perfectly the sentiment carried by the words.

On the subject of the lyrics, “Your Ex” is more of a narrative relating to a specific time and place. With clearly articulated concrete imagery, its story-telling style seems to draw the listener in closer: “captured a taxi despite all the rain/we drove in silence across pont champlain/and all of that time you thought I was sad/I was trying to remember your name.”

Although “Your Ex” sounds as if it’s the direct personal experience of the songwriters, its very specificity gives the song a compelling force. Like an eavesdropper, the listener is, through compulsion or recognition, forced to listen.