Being alone and becoming alone — Mark Tuan's 'Alone'

Being alone and becoming alone are different. The first is a state; the second is an event. Even on a night by yourself in a room, the two separate. Was this a night you were always alone, or a night you became alone?

The song Mark Tuan released on July 31 works on the second one.

Three minutes thirty-six

The track runs 3:36 — neither short nor long, close to a pop standard.

Item	Detail
Song	Single 'Alone'
Release	July 31
Length	3:36
Credits	Produced by Peyote · written by Mark Tuan, Tone Stith

There isn't much the song does inside that length. It sets a situation, stays in it, and leaves. No resolution is added.

The title being 'Alone'

Alone is a common word for a song title, which also makes it hard to handle. It's been used so often there isn't much new to say with it.

But the word has two faces: the lonely side and the unburdened side. Look at the same state from either and it changes completely. And the two can alternate within one night.

This song doesn't pick a side. It doesn't call being alone bad or good; it just stays inside it, setting isolation and unsteadiness down beside whatever holds up in there anyway.

Alone, for someone who came out of a group

Mark Tuan worked as part of a group for a long time. Where seven people once stood, the singer now stands alone.

Songs by people who moved from a group to solo have a particular quality — the sense of a space that suddenly got wider. Take on alone a stretch that several voices used to share and the character of a voice shows, because there's nowhere to hide.

A title like 'Alone' reads a little differently from that position. Not only a personal feeling but a remark on the form Mark Tuan is standing in now. That's the listener's reading, of course; the song doesn't say so.

Tonight, try it like this

Leave one light on. Played as background this song passes by; played with attention it stays.

And bring to mind the time you spent alone today. Was it time you were always alone, or time you became alone? Usually the former. We're by ourselves more often than we think, and we mistake it for an event.

Three minutes thirty-six is enough time to make that distinction. When the song ends the room will be the same. What changes is only what you call it.

Not every night by yourself is the same night. You don't have to decide which one tonight is. And if there's a song that suits passing through without deciding, it's 'Alone'.