Darkness

"Darkness" is a song by American rapper Eminem, from his eleventh studio album Music to Be Murdered By. Its music video is the first video released for the album. "Darkness" was released as a single simultaneously with the rest of the album on January 17, 2020, with no prior announcement. Content Eddie Fu, staff writer at Genius, wrote: "The track channels the perspective of Stephen Paddock—who killed 60 people in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting—to make a point about gun control." Spencer Kornhaber noted in The Atlantic: "The song and the video do not simply restage the massacre, though. Eminem is attempting a double entendre, in which most of the lyrics could equally refer to the rapper himself, sitting in a hotel room, nervous before a concert." The song interpolates the 1965 song "The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel, using a piano version of its recurring guitar motif and its opening line, "Hello, darkness, my old friend." Music video On January 17, 2020, a music video of the song was released on Eminem's YouTube channel. The video follows the same plot as the lyrics. The first two verses alternate between showing Eminem in a dark room wearing a hoodie and an unidentified person in a hotel room wearing the same hoodie, surrounded by alcohol and ammunition. At the beginning of the third verse, the person takes off the hood and reveals himself to be the Las Vegas shooter, before opening fire on the concert-goers from the hotel window. As police try to break into his room, the shooter, instead of opening fire at the front door, shoots himself in the head.