Songfacts®:

• Released on September 26, 2024, "Alone" is the first new single by The Cure in 16 years, marking their return to recorded music after a long hiatus. The song takes a leisurely three and a half minutes before Robert Smith's vocals make an appearance. If you've got your audience hanging on for your first new track in over a decade and a half, why not hold off just a little longer? Build the tension before hitting them with that signature dose of melancholy they've been craving.
• This is the end of every song that we sing
  The fire burned out to ash, and the stars grown dim with tears
  
  When Robert Smith finally does arrive, he does so with the emotional weight of a leaden sky, intensifying the song's already gloomy atmosphere. His lyrics conjure up a bleak, forlorn world drained of warmth and light, leaving him stranded in isolation and yearning for some elusive connection.
• "Alone" serves as the opening track for Songs of a Lost World, The Cure's 14th album. The song was inspired by "Dregs" by the English poet Ernest Dowson, a poem about grief, death, and loneliness - exactly the kind of material you'd expect Smith to draw from.
  
  "It's the track that unlocked the record," Smith explained. "As soon as we had that piece of music recorded, I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus."
  
  Smith had been toying with the simple but powerful theme of "being alone," but struggled to find the right words to open the song. That is, until he recalled Dowson's poem.
  
  "As soon as we finished recording, I remembered the poem 'Dregs'... and that was the moment when I knew the song - and the album - were real."
• The Cure debuted "Alone" live on October 6, 2022, during their Shows of a Lost World tour, at Arena Riga in Riga, Latvia.
• Songs Of A Lost World debuted at #1 on the Official UK Chart. The Cure's only other UK chart-topping album was Wish in 1992.