Songfacts®:

• In soccer, a slide tackle is when a defender goes to the ground and slides after the ball trying to kick it away from the attacker. It's a risky, last-ditch maneuver that's kind of dangerous, often resulting in a yellow card if the other player gets clipped with a cleat.
  
  The song, though, has nothing to do with soccer. In fact, Michelle Zauner, who uses the name Japanese Breakfast for her musical endeavors, last played soccer in third grade and her team didn't score a goal all year. So what's it all about?
  
  "I just liked the idea of having this song about literally battling or wrestling with a void in your brain," she explained to Stereogum. "I liked the idea of literally grappling with your mind to force it into submission to feel joy. That was just one of those physical moves that I thought was a funny thing to think about, literally slide tackling your brain into submitting it to enjoy itself."
• Ryan Galloway from the band Crying produced this song along with Michelle Zauner and Craig Hendrix. Zauner brought the basic drum beat, first verse, and chorus to Galloway, aiming for a Future Islands sound with a simple electronic beat and memorable bass line. The song went through a lot of changes before they arrived at the final project, complete with saxophone solo by Adam Schatz.
  
  In 2020, Zauner and Galloway released a four-song EP called Pop Songs 2020 under the moniker Bumper, but "Slide Tackle" was recorded earlier.
• "Slide Tackle" is part of Jubilee, the third Japanese Breakfast album. It was delayed by the pandemic, so there was a four year wait for it - the previous album was Soft Sounds From Another Planet in 2017. In 2021 Michelle Zauner also released a highly acclaimed memoir called Crying in H Mart that hashes out her upbringing as a Korean American. That was quite a year for her!
• A popular live song in the Japanese Breakfast catalog, "Slide Tackle" was performed on The Late Late Show with James Corden in January 2022 as Michelle Zauner was promoting the Jubilee album.