I X Love signifies both "my ex-love" and also "a love which I ended, which I x-x-x-ed out." The song is an updating of Nouroog from the Mingus repertory. The girl being described was a most sensual being, and accordingly, the song and its performance reflect the emotions that such a young lady evokes in retrospect.
 
Celia is a portrait of a former wife of Mingus. She was—and is—a woman of wit, sensibility and resiliency. Mingus's use of The Lady in Red as a secondary theme reflects the fact that she has red hair. Like the preceding track, Celia re-emphasizes the gentleness and capacity for loving which are at the core of the complicated phenomenon which is Charles Mingus. In both, the alto saxophone is Charlie Mariano. In sections, Celia is more turbulent than I X Love since its basic emotional theme may well be the difficulty of getting to know oneself well enough to begin to get to know anyone else.
 
—Nat Hentoff, liner notes for Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus, 1954