“For Ash” is written for an ex-boyfriend of Stern’s who committed suicide. In a February 2010 article with Stereogum, Stern said that when she heard the news:

I wasn’t thinking about myself, I was thinking about him. I stayed up for like three days working on that song. And it was sort of… I mean, I’m no hippie, but it was kind of like a trance-like thing. It was so upsetting and so powerful. I guess I feel like I cared about this person so incredibly much, that I wish I had a hundred songs that I could sing every night about him.