I Alone

During the sessions for Throwing Copper, Live recorded "I Alone" a half step lower than it was written, landing in G♭ major even though the song was composed in G major. The track became the second single from that album, which the York, Pennsylvania band had released in 1994 after forming a decade earlier with Ed Kowalczyk on lead vocals and guitars, Patrick Dahlheimer on bass, Chad Gracey on drums, and Chad Taylor on guitars.

Radio stations in Canada and the United States received the single in August 1994, though a commercial release overseas did not follow until December. It climbed to No. 6 on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, and VH1 later ranked it the 62nd-best song of the 1990s. Throwing Copper itself went on to sell eight million copies in the United States.

Kowalczyk pushed back against how listeners read the words. People assumed "I Alone" was a love song, he said, but the lyrics were more abstract and carried a much larger message. He explained the line about the greatest of teachers hesitating to leave someone chained to fate by pointing to a lesson he took from studying spiritual teachings: religion and truth had to be found and practiced for oneself, rather than accepted from the word of others. Live played the song at Woodstock '99 on July 23, 1999, in Rome, New York.