Songfacts®:

• "Backslide" is the third single from Twenty One Pilots' sixth studio album, Clancy. The track dives deep, with frontman Tyler Joseph baring his soul about fame, career choices, regrets and the creeping anxieties that come with artistic evolution. It's all there in the chorus:
  
  I don't wanna backslide to where I've started from
  There's no chance I will shake this again
• "Backslide" is steeped in the lore of Clancy, the fictional world woven throughout various Twenty One Pilots albums. Joseph makes references to previous eras of the band, directly naming "Saturday" from the duo's fifth studio album, Scaled And Icy.
  
  Bad place, on a hundred-dollar bass
  Kinda wishin' that I never did "Saturday"
  
  Fans had a field day deciphering it all. "Saturday" might represent a misstep for Clancy, the story's protagonist. A cautionary tale, perhaps, urging him to stay on the straight and narrow.
• Tyler Joseph wrote "Backslide" himself and co-produced it with Mutemath frontman Paul Meany. Sonically, the song throws it back to Twenty One Pilots' Blurryface era with a gritty, hip-hop-tinged beat reminiscent of "Stressed Out."
• The music video, directed by Josh Dun in his directorial debut, takes a Groundhog Day turn. We see Tyler stuck on repeat, cruising around town on his signature red and black BMX.