The first time I heard “Darkness” by Eminem, I had a lot of conflicting emotions. I was angry. I was devastated. I felt sick to my stomach. As the song went on, I started to realize what (and who) it was about. What at first seemed to be a rap about being a disillusioned celebrity soon revealed itself to be a glimpse into the mind of a severely disturbed individual. “Darkness” attempts to recreate the mental state of the Las Vegas shooter, taking the listener through his thoughts as he prepared to kill dozens of people in the 2017 mass shooting. It’s haunting and painful in a way that cannot be shaken off. Eminem sings the refrain “I don’t wanna be alone in the darkness” throughout the song, perhaps drawing a connection both to how he feels and how the shooter might have felt that day.
There are several phrases in “Darkness” that have double meanings, such as “round after round, I’m getting loaded. That’s a lot of shots, huh?” Eminem fans could take this as a reference to shots of alcohol, referring to the days before he decided to commit to sobriety in 2008. A secondary meaning can be applied to the shooter, loading up his gun and firing off multiple shots. The entire song has parallels that can be true both for people in the spotlight and people struggling in the darkness. We all feel alone sometimes. We all have thoughts like that, feelings of isolation and sadness. The song points out a deeply troubling and important truth about mental health in our society; sometimes people feel that way and we can’t see it. Sometimes people have “no signs of mental illness” but they’re struggling to escape the darkness in their own mind. Eminem very effectively communicates this thought in “Darkness,” in a way that sticks with you and reflects some of our culture’s most troubling issues.
The outro of the song is perhaps the most chilling part of the entire track. Listeners hear audio from news coverage of not only the Las Vegas shooting, but several other deadly mass-shootings that have occurred over the past few years in the United States. I believe that Eminem wrote this song to bring these horrific events to the forefront of our minds for a reason. He wanted us to see that there are people struggling to express their inner pain, and those people are all around us. He wanted to send a message to those in power that something must be changed. He wanted to ignite something in everyone who listens, something that urges us to make change. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, “Darkness” did just that.
The first time I heard “Darkness” by Eminem, I had a lot of conflicting emotions. I was angry. I was devastated. I felt sick to my stomach. As the song went on, I started to realize what (and who) it was about. What at first seemed to be a rap about being a disillusioned celebrity soon revealed itself to be a glimpse into the mind of a severely disturbed individual. “Darkness” attempts to recreate the mental state of the Las Vegas shooter, taking the listener through his thoughts as he prepared to kill dozens of people in the 2017 mass shooting. It’s haunting and painful in a way that cannot be shaken off. Eminem sings the refrain “I don’t wanna be alone in the darkness” throughout the song, perhaps drawing a connection both to how he feels and how the shooter might have felt that day.
The outro of the song is perhaps the most chilling part of the entire track. Listeners hear audio from news coverage of not only the Las Vegas shooting, but several other deadly mass-shootings that have occurred over the past few years in the United States. I believe that Eminem wrote this song to bring these horrific events to the forefront of our minds for a reason. He wanted us to see that there are people struggling to express their inner pain, and those people are all around us. He wanted to send a message to those in power that something must be changed. He wanted to ignite something in everyone who listens, something that urges us to make change. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, “Darkness” did just that.