"Dark Side"/"Demons"
- Feb 20, 2017
- 3 min read
The Songs:
Dark Side - Kelly Clarkson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ArpRWcGe0
Demons - Imagine Dragons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWRsgZuwf_8
The Backstory:
I love this song, “Dark Side” by Kelly Clarkson, from her album “Stronger” (2012). The lyrics describe how it’s often scary to show the ones we love our inward pain or what’s in our past. However well-put-together you look on the outside, your inner self is something you only let a few people see. It relates to the way we sometimes are afraid others won’t like what they see; many of us just expect/anticipate rejection because we’re so used to people leaving rather than staying when they see all sides of us.
“Demons” is by Imagine Dragons, on their album “Night Visions,” released in 2013. This song warns the listener that if you get close to them you will see their true colors, and it won’t be pretty. When the day is done and our masks are taken off, everyone has darkness and brokenness on the inside. We don’t get to choose where we come from or all that happens to us, and those are often like “demons” that we hide and don’t let others see. In both of these songs the singer is showing their vulnerable and broken side, hoping not to be rejected but to be saved from their darkness by someone who chooses to stay and love them in spite of it.
This mashup is about asking someone you love to help you to be your true self, without having to hide in the darkness any longer. It combines lines from “Demons” that say “When you feel my heat, look into my eyes - it’s where my demons hide,” with lines from “Dark Side” that say things like “Don’t give up on me, remind me who I really am,” and “don’t run away, promise me you will stay.”
The How:
Both of these songs were a little out of my vocal range in their original keys, so I met in the middle by putting the mash-up in C (on guitar I capo 5 and play G). The thing I often run into is that it’s hard to make mash-ups by yourself. Unless you have other people to perform with, and/or technology that allows you to loop or record alongside yourself, you can’t do any layering of songs or harmonies. I might revamp this one later on using Bandhub.com - where I can record along with myself as many times as I want - and add more layering of the songs with some harmony parts as well. But for now, it’s two songs put into just one melody line by just one of me!
I start out with “Dark Side,” following the intro, first verse, chorus, and second verse pretty closely to the original. After the second verse, I switch to singing the chorus of “Demons.”
Leading into “Dark Side”s bridge I connect the “where my demons hide” line with a filler phrase “oh my dark side.” After “Dark Side”s bridge I sing a part of “Demons” bridge, then alternate a few lines from each building back into “Dark Side”s chorus.
Again I connect the “where my demons hide” line after the chorus’ “Will you love me, even with my dark side?”, and finish the song with the outro from “Dark Side.”
Don't forget to give me song suggestions for future mash-ups! Feel free to share any of these posts that you like, and spread the love of music in your world. This blog can't continue without new ideas, and without readers!!! Enjoy!
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