Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Still in the Game” is not a forgotten single, a bonus track or a secret installment of E•MO•TION: Side B. It is an unreleased recording that began circulating without authorization in May 2016. That distinction matters: although the song sounds convincingly complete, Jepsen and her labels have never given this particular recording a commercial release.
The surviving evidence places it within the large body of music created around Jepsen’s third album, E•MO•TION. Fan-maintained discographies identify it as an outtake, while contemporary reports treated its appearance online as a leak rather than a sanctioned premiere. Its history consequently has to be reconstructed from release catalogs, contemporaneous coverage and cautiously handled fan documentation—not from an official campaign.
The leak, not a release
The most specific surviving chronology dates the full leak to May 27, 2016. A fan-maintained catalog of Jepsen leaks records that date, and Brazilian outlets reported the newly circulating song almost immediately. Tracklist described it as an unreleased recording that had “fallen onto the internet”, while POPline likewise covered it as an unheard Jepsen track rather than a new single.
Those reports are evidence of public circulation, not proof of an authorized issue. There is no corresponding listing in Jepsen’s official commercial catalog, and “Still in the Game” does not appear on the standard E•MO•TION sequence preserved by Apple Music, the later companion EP or recognized regional editions. The appropriate historical description is therefore “leaked unreleased recording.” Calling May 27 a release date would wrongly grant an illicit disclosure the status of label action.
The wording used around old uploads can add confusion. A polished file may be labeled “CDQ,” “demo,” “unreleased single” or even “Side C,” but none of those user-applied tags establishes provenance. No unauthorized audio is linked here, and unofficial video uploads should not be interpreted as artist-approved distribution.
Where it fits in the E•MO•TION chronology
Jepsen spent roughly three years developing E•MO•TION. In a 2015 interview, she told Time that the process produced about 200 songs over two and a half years. That unusually large pool explains why a persuasive pop song could remain outside the final album without necessarily having been rejected for quality.
E•MO•TION first arrived in Japan in June 2015 and reached North America on August 21. Its defining aesthetic paired direct romantic writing with synthesizers, gated drums and melodic cues drawn from 1980s pop. Jepsen described the goal not as nostalgia for its own sake but as pop whose hooks carried longing. The Recording Academy’s contemporary interview about the album also documents the deliberate reinvention occurring after the enormous reach of “Call Me Maybe.”
“Still in the Game” fits that broader workshop naturally, but its precise session date is not publicly documented. Fan databases generally credit Jepsen, Swedish songwriters Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub, and place the recording in the E•MO•TION period. Known session research shows Jepsen worked with Falk and Yacoub at Stockholm’s Kinglet Studios in October 2014, producing material including “First Time.” That makes a connection plausible, but it does not prove that “Still in the Game” was created on the same day or at that studio.
The safest credit formulation is therefore qualified: Jepsen, Falk and Yacoub are consistently reported as the writers, with Falk and Yacoub often identified as producers, but no official liner notes for this unreleased master have surfaced. Some secondary lists have introduced conflicting names, including Steve Robson. Without a label credit sheet or public performing-rights entry conclusively tied to this recording, those discrepancies should remain visible rather than being converted into certainty.
What the recording sounds like
Musically, the circulating version is sleek, melodic synth-pop built around romantic uncertainty and game imagery. Jepsen’s narrator is neither confidently committed nor fully detached. References to playing cards, heat and cold turn an unstable relationship into a contest whose rules remain unclear.
That reading is interpretation, not documented authorial explanation. What can be heard is a tightly organized pop arrangement: restrained verses, a rising pre-chorus, a repeated title hook and a bridge that briefly asks for the relationship to be spoken into existence. Bright backing vocals and buoyant percussion keep the track moving even as the lyric worries about emotional drought and impermanence.
The push and pull is characteristic of Jepsen’s strongest E•MO•TION-era writing. The production promises release; the words postpone it. Her vocal performance sounds conversational in the verses and increasingly insistent around the hook, turning “still” into both reassurance and delay. The song is less about winning romance than about persuading oneself that the contest has not ended.
Its polish also helps explain persistent mislabeling. This is not obviously a voice-note demo or fragment. It has the structural finish of a potential album track. Yet commercial completeness and legal release are different things: mastering quality cannot substitute for authorization.
Why it was absent from Side B
On August 26, 2016—three months after the leak—Jepsen officially released E•MO•TION: Side B. Time covered the eight-song companion project as an anniversary celebration, and Vice described it as a continuation of the album’s carefully crafted pop world. “Still in the Game” was not included.
Its omission should not be read as confirmation that Jepsen disliked it. Side B was a curated EP, not an exhaustive archive. Jepsen had far more outtakes than one short release could accommodate, and the chosen songs formed their own emotional progression. The absence does, however, defeat a common claim that “Still in the Game” was quietly issued through that project.
Nor has it subsequently been promoted as a stand-alone Jepsen release. Fan enthusiasm has kept its title alive, but popularity within collector culture does not change ownership or release status. Later playlists and “Side C” compilations are unofficial constructions, however thoughtfully sequenced.
The responsible legacy of a leaked song
“Still in the Game” offers a revealing glimpse of how much high-level songwriting sat outside E•MO•TION’s already celebrated track list. Its romantic hesitation, bright surfaces and economical hook make it easy to understand why listeners adopted it as a lost favorite. It also demonstrates why unreleased catalogs require careful language.
The facts support a narrow conclusion: a Jepsen recording associated with the E•MO•TION sessions circulated online on May 27, 2016; it is widely attributed to Jepsen, Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub; and it has never received a verified official release. Everything beyond that—its exact session, final intended destination and reason for exclusion—remains undocumented.
That uncertainty need not diminish the song. If anything, it locates “Still in the Game” more honestly: not as a suppressed hit or phantom single, but as an accomplished piece of an unusually productive pop era, heard by the public through circumstances its creators did not choose.