Music allows artists to convey their trauma, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions through not just words, but through rhyme, symbolism, rhythm and beat. The result is two songs instead of one: the explicit and the implicit. An example of this is seen in Marshall Bruce Mathers III, professionally known as Eminem, with a history of being completely transparent and raw in his music. He exposes issues in his tempestuous upbringing, characterized by abuse and poverty. A trait that distinguishes Eminem in the industry, is that he is very blunt, vulgar, and violent, which has attracted many critiques. He has a history of substance abuse, mental illness, and difficulty with interpersonal relationships, which has driven him to explore similar thematic in his music.
An example of what has been previously mentioned lies in his song ‘Darkness’, in which he mirrors his personal experience with mental illness and substance abuse with the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. On the night of October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock fired from his room on the thirty-second floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel into a crowd of approximately 22,000 people at a festival. This began at 10:05 pm, “using an arsenal of 23 guns, 12 of which were upgraded with bump stocks – a tool used to fire semi-automatic guns in rapid succession. Within the 10 minutes, he was able to fire more than 1,100 rounds of ammunition” (History, 2018). The authorities tried to intervene, but by the time they got to Paddock’s room, he had committed suicide via a shot wound to his head. The death toll and injured made it the deadliest mass shooting in US history at the time of the attack (History, 2018). In his song ‘Darkness’, Eminem relates his personal feelings and experiences to those of Paddock at the time of the shooting via a first-person narrative and the use of imagery and allusions to also expose the dark truths behind mental illness.
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Through the mechanisms mentioned Eminem also establishes the tone of the song. He alludes through the line “Hello darkness my old friend” to Simon and Garfunkel’s famous song ‘The Sound of Silence’. Using this repetitive allusion, he conveys the tone of despair and defeat throughout the entire song. He accepts defeat before the darkness that has overtaken his mind and soul due to mental illness and parallels his situation with Paddocks. This defeat drives him to narrate, like Paddock, and for moments in the song, he is proud of what he has done since he is speaking without any sign of remorse. Nonetheless, the despair and the loneliness both men feel is constantly conveyed to the audience through “Hello darkness my old friend”.
Furthermore, Eminem uses vivid imagery to communicate the reality behind mental illness such as anxiety and depression. The image of curtains and darkness is repeated along the song to emphasize the theme of loneliness in mental illness, it is like an inescapable hole. References to Valium and other anxiety and depression medication can also be observed. Eminem points out that these are not enough to alleviate the heaviness by implying their mixture with alcohol.
Perhaps, the most vivid imagery refers to the guns and the shooting, because apart from being descriptive with his words, Eminem accompanies his worded imagery with sound. This gets the message across to the listener in the clearest way, and it plays on his or her emotions. It could be said that the singer is trying to bring the listener with him into his journey and inside his mind, trying to provide the reader with the smallest experience of what it is like inside a mentally ill mind. Regarding guns, he does not express his clear views on the issue of gun control, but he does reference this shooting as something that could be a consequence to the lack of it through the line “Finger on the trigger, but I'm a licensed owner with no prior convictions, so the law says the sky's the limit, so my supply's infinite, strapped like I'm a soldier”. He leaves it up to interpretation.
Importantly, the rhyme pattern must be looked upon. It is noticeable that with each “Hello darkness my old friend” the rhyme scheme changes. This may signify the instability of the mentally ill mind.
Conclusively, in his song ‘Darkness’ Eminem portrayed his mental struggles through Paddocks. Throughout the entire song, he parallels his situation as an artist about to go on stage, with Paddock’s moments before the shooting. He lets the listener into his soul and mind using vivid imagery, rhyme, tone, and sound effects. Eminem portrays the raw, ugly truth he has had to face his whole life and brings the listener to face it too, as hard as it may be.
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