MASTERMIND - H.S

SONG DISSECTION: 'ALIVE' and 'STRONG'

[SONG DISSECTION]

ALIVE

"Alive" is a song by British-Irish boy band One Direction from their third album, Midnight Memories. It is the seventeenth track of the deluxe version of the album.

It was performed on the Where We Are Tour and the On the Road Again Tour. but was eventually replaced by "Drag Me Down" during the latter.

It's known as the first collaboration between One Direction and Adelaide Heathers, as she appeared as a songwriter in this song.

It was also the first time Heathers produced a song in her entire career. She is credited as the sole producer of the song.

Adelaide wrote majority of the song, deciding not to put it on her 1989 album, and instead selling it to One Direction.

For several years, the meaning of the song was theorized. Lyrically, the song is about seeking help for sex addiction but being unable to stop. Fans theorized the song could in fact be about internalized homophobia, as the lyrics appear to make more sense if the "she" or "girl" pronouns throughout the song are changed to "he" or "boy".

In a 2014 interview with 28 F.M, Heathers said, "I wrote the chorus of that song in about thirty minutes tops. And from there, the rest of it came very naturally as I started fooling around with an electric guitar for the music. I actually loved the song quite a lot, but it didn't fit the image and the vision I had for my next album. I thought the 1D boys would love it, so I showed it to Liam, and from there, they loved it and became insistent on me selling it to them."

STRONG

"Strong" is a song by British-Irish boy band One Direction from their third album, Midnight Memories. It is the seventh track of the deluxe version of the album.

The song is a fan favorite and has been performed on the Where We Are Tour and the On The Road Again Tour. It was removed from the On The Road Again Tour setlist during the North American leg.

Lyrically, the song describes a desire to openly love and need a person, without concern for outsider judgement.

One of the songwriters involved noted that Tomlinson wanted to make a statement that went against the stereotype of men suppressing their feelings and emotions.

"I had this concept for a song. Kind of about what it's like to fall in love when you have problems with trust, and I wanted it to be about I'm sorry that I love you, I don't want to want you, because it makes me feel weak and powerless to lose that control over my emotions," Adelaide Heathers said in an interview, a songwriter on this song, "It was Louis who kind of stood up to me and said, 'well, why do people think falling in love makes you weak?'. We ended up having a discussion there in the studio- all of the boys, along with our producer Julian [Bunetta], and it was so cool to write a song from a completely different perspective."

In an interview with MTV News, Julian Bunetta said, "We got into this discussion about how when you tell someone like 'I need you, I love you and I need you 'cause you make me strong,' essentially you can scare someone off. It's pressure, so people just kind of run from it. So, that's what the lyric is," recalled Bunetta, who also helped produce songs on the album. "It's saying 'I'm sorry if I say this, but fuck it. It was just sort of a thing that I think all guys feel, having to uphold a woman who I love 'I'm strong' philosophy, and kind of throwing that idea out the window."

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