WILLOW, aka Willow Smith, is back with a new song and accompanying visualizer for “alone.” The simple, yet stunning black-and-white music video zooms in and out of an ever-expressive WILLOW as she sings over a simple jazzy drum beat.
Though a departure from her pop-punk albums <COPINGMECHANISM> and lately I feel EVERYTHING, the calming track harkens back to the R&B-centric songs from 2020’s THE ANXIETY. Check out the song and visualizer below.
WILLOW directed the video herself, and even shared a short video from the creation of it. Dressed in all black, she sits in front of a large white background, with a solemn expression.
Instrumentally, WILLOW worked alongside artist Eddie Benjamin. In an Instagram post, she shared, “BIG GRATITUDE to @eddiebenjamin for putting up with my shenanigans while masterfully playing damn near every instrument in the studio – as you can see we had way too much fun making this track & I can’t wait for you all to transcend this earthly plane while listening … I know we did.”
Sharing more about her single with journalist Larisha Paul, WILLOW told Rolling Stone about her new venture with “alone.” “I feel like ‘alone”’ straddles two worlds. It has that intense relief moment at the end, but there are some really interesting time-signature variations that happen in the song that you don’t really see anywhere in Lately I Feel Everything or Coping Mechanism,” WILLOW shared in the Rolling Stone interview. “There’s some quintuplet beats that are just really different from rhythmic expressions that I’ve used before. It’s this amazing bridge of a song because it has a heart of vulnerability, and we have the guitars that are driving feeling. But there’s this underlying complexity that is just such a great foreshadowing for what’s to come.”
“alone” Lyrics:
Do you see me wonder where to
Go when I don’t know uh-huh uh-huh X2
I am so tired of being a liar it’s true
Uh-huh X2
True what do I do true what do I do
I need to say that
I know I am no good at this please do
what you must cause its no use
Everything falls away
In time
Ah ah ah ah X4
Alone alone
Nothing is what it seems
When you wake
When you dream
When you talk
Is it not medicine
For us all
Show me something I cannot define
Nothing is what it seems
When you wake when you dream
When you talk is it not medicine for us al
I’d sure like to think that but nothing is intact to speak to the wounds that
I gave and I have
I know I am no good at this please do
What you must cause it’s no use
Everything falls away
In time
Ah ah ah ah X4
Alone alone
Do you see me wandering
Alone alone
