No One Is Lost

My wife and I have long been devoted to music from the band Stars. It’s hard to pick a favorite album, but I especially treasure a few of the songs on No One Is Lost. The 2014 album was recorded in a studio the band built above a gay discotheque and seems to have absorbed some of the dance vibes, if not the sexuality, through the floorboards. Stars doesn't spring the title track on their listeners until the very end of the album, but it’s a massive banger to bring things to a close.

It’s hard to find danceable songs with such a sober sense of the finite nature of our mortal existence. As singer Torquil Campbell repeats “Put your hands up ‘cause everybody dies,” one gets the sense that this is an expression of momento mori and the modern equivalent of the ancient Roman practice of having someone follow your victory chariot exhorting you to “remember your death.” If this sounds too morbid, Campbell and co-vocalist Amy Milan also repeat, “Until then, that will listen, no one is lost.”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think this was akin to the Christian belief that until the end, one always has a chance to repent.