Around a week ago was when I first listened to ‘Sex (With My Ex)’ by FLETCHER, the last track from her confessional break-up EP, ‘The S(ex) Tapes’. It was (I’m ashamed to admit) the first that I had ever heard from the artist. I have not stopped listening since.
Accompanied by its music video, my first listen was a struggle to comprehend the immense range of emotions that FLETCHER has explored in this track. The tempestuous nature of ‘breakup sex’ is conveyed through her strikingly honest lyricism as well as the littering of softer, melancholic moments in the melody, a contrast to the otherwise upbeat tune. My favourite line of the song is ‘I thought it’d be harmless’, a line at the end of the first chorus during which the entire tone of the song changes, and the drums disappear for just a moment, leaving FLETCHER’s vocals alone with the heavenly sounding piano. This moment feels the most vulnerable, and represents the painful realisation that breakup sex is draining and confusing, and that the familiarity and comfort that was once experienced from an ex is something that you can no longer indulge in.
The music video added an extra dimension to the track, displaying such intimate moments between FLETCHER and her ex that watching it felt intrusive yet, at the same time, I couldn’t look away. A montage of fleeting black and white clips sometimes provocative and other times simply nostalgic inspired in me such a mixture of emotions that deciding whether I found the video titillating or heartbreaking caused an internal conflict in itself. Yet don’t these contrasting emotions perfectly reflect the nature of breakup sex?
Although ‘Sex (With My Ex)’ is the most atmospheric track of the EP, with its characterisation of New York playing a huge part in its distinctly romantic feel, it was the second track on the EP, ‘If I Hated You’, that resonated with me the most. In the midst of my own breakup, and bewildered by all of the conflicting emotions that I was going through, FLETCHER puts into words what I couldn’t. I was able to draw parallels between my own life and hers as she captures in her writing the heartbreak of finding the right person at the wrong time. ‘If I Hated You’ is a song about yearning for independence but at the same time not being able to let go.
The song’s music video includes a voicemail left by the artist in which she says, “Sometimes I think about how I wish you could have just done something to make me hate you…something to hurt me, to make me stay away from you, to make me want to stay away from you and just how much easier this could be if I hated you. But I don’t.” This is not a track
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