Released April 20th, “Alive” is the first track from her third studio album. It’s everything Sloan’s fans could ask for. “Alive” is raw and doesn’t hold back. Sloan writes of the whiplash of mental health, the roller coaster of the ups and downs in recovery, and the struggle of both romanticizing and fatalizing certain aspects of recovery. The lyrics speak to a defeated feeling during the valleys.

“What’s the point in picking up the pieces / When I can’t even get my own self clean again,” Sloan writes in “Alive.” 

Sloan wrote the single during what felt like setbacks in her recovery, when she was experiencing bouts of depression and anxiety. Like so many others, Sloan wasn’t sure what life was going to look like during and after the pandemic, and she wasn’t sure she was going to be back to making music.

She had been working on some material when she got a call from producer Johnny Manchild (who produced Sloan’s past two albums). Manchild was moving to LA and wanted her album to be his last project. She took this as a sign to make the project she was waiting for. This led to the production of Sloan’s favorite album to date.

When Sloan originally wrote “Alive,” she created it as a ballad, but the song took a different shape with input from producer Manchild and co-producer Ethan Neel. The pair experimented with the speed of the track, seeing what it would sound like if it were more upbeat. 

Sloan fell in love with the newer version and found that she preferred the somber lyrics with the peppier music. For OKC music fans, “Alive” strikes a similar tone to much of the Poor Bastards’ music (of which Manchild and Neel belong). 

Sloan perfectly encapsulates the mental strain of going back and forth from moment to moment and feeling out of control of one’s own recovery. Sloan described the track as a “shrugging.” The upbeat music and the heavier lyrics send exactly the message that Sloan wants to send to her listeners — sometimes the dark and light can coexist, and it’s going to be hard before it gets better. 

Sloan writes, “Didn’t wanna polish all the pieces / When I’ll just fuck it all up by myself again / And this is what I get for letting you in / Oh it’s all the same. I’m stuck inside the movement / The cycles spin regardless of the bruising / So check the wheel. I’m stuck in the ruin.”

Sloan said a big part of her recovery was learning to feel through her emotions. She feels like she’s made it through to the other side, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still bad days. Recovery for everyone can be up and down, and part of her mission with this new single is to highlight the strength that forms through time.

“You’re not alone in it,” Sloan said. “Just go through the emotions. Go through the feeling. Then you’ll be able to see the light if you go through the shadows and actually acknowledge how you’re feeling.”