River of Darkness[1] is a song by the_midnight featuring Timecop1983. It is the fourth track from their album nocturnal.
Track info
The song was written by band members tim_mcewan and tyler_lyle alongside Jordy Leenaerts and produced by McEwan. The saxophone on River of Darkness was performed by thomas_edinger and the lead guitar was done by Pelle Hillström. It has a running time of six minutes and five seconds and is in the key of E-flat minor.
McEwan revealed in a Q&A session at a liveshow in 2022, that the male voice, heard in the beginning of the track, is a man named Eric.
“I— maybe I should reveal— I’ve had so many questions through the years, whether on social media, people asking— asking us for ‘Sunset’ and the ‘River of Darkness’, and I…. I kinda revealed the ‘Sunset’ one the other day, that it wasn’t from a movie, and I kept a tight lip, but maybe now I should reveal that I actually… it’s a script that I wrote out, and actually, I was… the studio I was renting a room at in Hollywood back then, in 2017… there was one of the— one of the owners, one of the producer guys that ran the studios, he was named Eric, and, I was like, ‘Eric, can you— do you wanna help me out? Come in here?’, and he read out my script. I was like, ‘imagine you’re in a smoke— you’re in a smokey bar, and it’s a scene from kind of an ‘80s noir movie, and it’s very masculine and kinda like, very sexy, low-spoken voice… keep it husky and sexy.’ And he was like, [imitating husky voice] ‘Hey man… I know you miss her, man…’, and I was like ‘That’s exactly right.”
“And I put tons of compression on it, to— and put some background, kinda like, noise to make it feel like it was… you know how movie clips are so compressed, you hear all the background noises and all the mouth noises, and it almost becomes like ASMR because it’s so, like, compressed? And I did that, and I was like— I was pretty chuffed with myself.”
Lyrics
Glowing windows in the buildings from the elevated train
I see a thousand different stories pass
And faces without names
>
I forget why I came here
And forget why I stay And wonder if they'd notice
If I tried to Slipped away
>
What if I kept going
What if I don't get off tonight What if I ride this to the edges
Through the darkness to the light
>
Could I find you there?
Could I find you there?
If I slipped away?
>
What if there's no answer
We’re all just hearts that have to fight Through the dangers of the rapids
Through the darkness to the light
>
Could I find you there?
Could I find you there?
If I slipped away?
Lyrics source[2]