Ex's & Oh's

Album: Love Stuff (2014)
Charted: 15 10
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Songfacts®:

  • If you receive a love letter with X's and O's at the bottom, that's a good thing, since they represent kisses and hugs. If you show up in Elle King's song "Ex's & Oh's," it's more likely that you won't be sending her love letters. King says the song is about all her ex-boyfriends who hate her now. She adds that she's had her heart broken, but has also done her share of breaking hearts.
  • King says that there are four specific X-boyfriends mentioned in the song. In December 2015, she told Entertainment Weekly that she's spoken with three of them. "Everyone is mad at me," she said. "I'm not a terrible person, but it went platinum."
  • King wrote this song with Dave Bassett, a veteran songwriter who has co-written many tracks with Shinedown and Javier Colon. He is often brought in to assist an artist with writing a song as opposed to writing it and then pitching it to various artists.

    The song came to life when Bassett asked King about her love life, and she started talking about the far-flung guys she's been involved with. They started writing the song as a joke, but when King's label (RCA) heard it, they pegged it as the hit single.
  • Is the line, "They always want to come by they never want to leave" a sexual reference? Well, consider that the title from the album, Love Stuff, comes from a sex shop in Hollywood, Florida.
  • King is the daughter of former Saturday Night Live comedian Rob Schneider. "Ex's & Oh's" was her first major-label single; she performed the song on The Today Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon after the album was issued.
  • The video, directed by Michael Maxxis, is stocked with male hardbodies flexing, wrestling, and tending to King. She picked out the guys herself by watching casting videos.
  • Asked by Billboard magazine about the lyric, "I had me a boy, turned him into a man," King explained: "That specific relationship, I was telling that person to grow up, in terms of things he did that bugged me."

Comments: 6

  • Steven Erler from UsaSuch a shame that she's related to Rob Schneider. Biggest douche ever.
  • Zodeus BloombergWho are the men from the video
  • Slytherin Girl from ItalyIt's a song about why men get dropped, so stop being cynical about her body. I love the song, because if a man does that to women he is seen like "alpha", but when a woman leaves them, they get confused...

    I think we have our hearts broken. But you have to be careful with who you date. Every relationship will influence the next one. Of course we are trying to do the right things, but women need their independence as well.

    It's better to be alone, than being in a toxic relationship. So when someone leaves just LET them go. I love the comments of toxic men, saying that after 1 day with her, they would run away... I'd say most men don't even get 1 date of 2 hours. I've left people right after a first date. It's called "self respect"...you know the only thing that matters is to be financially independent, the rest is really "details"... I don't stay friends with people from the past, and I don't even think about who they might be dating now in my place. And men don't like that. They have their ego somewhere up in the sky,and they are competitive... whatever that means. Integrity matters the most.

    I wouldn't even bother to write them a song to be honest. I just don't think about the past. Life is too short. If they are with someone else oh well ... Good for them. Their absence is the most important thing for me. Plan and build your life around a dream, a job, a career, NOT people. They leave when things are not convenient anymore and we have to stop trying to change one another. There is only acceptance of who we are inside. If that "acceptance" is not there, then you know it's time to go.
  • John from Syracuse, New YorkJudging from the lyrics of this song, and the inspiration of it according to Ms King, she clearly has a problem with men. Just becouse you've been hurt by guys, doesn't make it okay for you to hurt them, 2 wrongs don't make a right, infact that's all the more reason not to hurt them becouse you know what it's like on the receiving end. Young lady you need to grow up. Looks to me like you take great pleasure in dissing guys. And you say you're not a mean person, yet you've hurt numerous guys for what I see as no good reason, and in my book that makes you a liar, a hipocrite. If I was one of your so called boy friends, you never would of hurt me becouse I wouldn't of given you the chance becouse after one day with you, you'd never see me again, after one look at you I'd not have stuck my neck out, infact one look at you, and that would be a deal breaker for me, you're not my type to begin with, I wouldn't give you a second look sweetheart!.
  • Glenn from UsaIt's just you.
  • Scott from UsaDoes anyone else notice that this song sounds a little like flagpole sitta by Harvey danger or is it just me?
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