Lyrically Speaking: How Haim channelled melancholy bliss in ‘I Know Alone’
They say that, as you grow, those moments of feeling completely lost in the world happen less often. As time passes by, you become wiser, and second-guessing yourself stops being second nature and fades away. They say all that, but it’s not always true, is it? Especially in this world, where anger and despair rise to the surface as easily as breathing, making you want to shrink back and block it all out. Or, as that one Haim lyric puts it, “I don’t wanna feel at all”.
It doesn’t always take one look at the state of the world to feel alone. Sometimes, it’s always there, as much a part of you as anything else, so much a natural part of the furniture that it’s easy to forget some people don’t experience the same feeling. Or at least not as much, or definitely not as deeply. And while looking outward sometimes pushes us more inward, we can also admit that, sometimes, wallowing can actually bring us a strange sense of comfort, too.
After all, there’s always sometimes something inexplicably satisfying about tucking yourself away from everyone and everything and letting yourself feel the darkness trying to push itself out. Instead of breaking out of the pit that beckons, you fall into it instead, letting it pull you into an idle state where you don’t have to do anything but be. Sometimes, the routine of the wallow brings us comfort, letting us feel the familiar sting of sadness before we feel ready to return to the world again.
This is precisely what Danielle Haim was thinking about when they wrote ‘I Know Alone’. As the title suggests, and the lyric “I know alone like no one else does”, the song was about existing in that strange place where alone feels cathartic in a way that’s hard to explain, like the only sure thing in an uncertain world. “Sometimes, being alone is the most comforting,” Haim told Apple Music. “And if you name the feeling – if you name ‘alone’ – it’s like your friend.”
She added, “When I just want to be left alone, I find comfort in my everyday routine. And it almost feels like that’s what’s comforting to me. And that’s what we wanted the song to sound like, eerie but has a beat that you can dance to.” Thus, the song speaks directly about the darkness that comes with such a heady feeling, but in a way that also feels uplifting, precisely like those moments when it’s just you, your empty heart, and a strange sense of liberation.
Lyrically, it’s easy to see the sinister nature of such a state: “Been a couple days since I’ve been out / Calling all my friends but they won’t pick up / Found another room in a different place / Sleeping through the day and I dream the same.” It’s a place we’ve all been that, in the moment, feels entirely infinite, the kind that takes over with faux warmth, making us switch off our feelings just to exist for a little while before the world and those in it exhaust us again.
And in those moments, everything becomes far more monotonous, with days ticking over into new ones and thoughts becoming puddles of nonspecific garble. As the song goes: “‘Cause nights turn into days / That turn to grey / Keep turning over / Some things never grow / I know alone like no one else does.” These are the moments of comfort: when it’s just the singularity of letting it all flow as it wants to and not trying to keep it at bay.
As we venture further, comforts become go-tos, like singing along to Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides, Now’ while waking up “at the wheel on the edge of town”, realising “it all looked the same, every mile”. When we’re sad, or uncomfortable, or even just tired, we give pieces of ourselves away, leading us to the exact point Haim reaches in the song when she says, “I don’t wanna give too much”, mostly because it’s all just too much.
This only intensifies near the end, when there’s a sense of the repetitiveness and the strong desire to just go away for a little while: “I know alone and I don’t wanna talk about it / Friday hits and I feel like wasting everybody’s time / When Sunday comes they expect me to shine”. On the surface, the song seems almost overwhelmingly dark, but this is all a part of the comfort most of us recognise: it seems a certain way, but it’s also a part of us, a part that many might never understand, but which becomes our default when we’re in need of a long overdue recharge. It’s us cowering away, so we can come back stronger.
