Musings of an Anonymous Indian

Daylight by David Kushner has been my go-to song nowadays. The song that I will play when I don’t have any song in my mind to play, or a playlist to vibe to. The song that I play when I am not feeling anything, and no playlist can make me feel anything.

As far as I remember, I listened to this song from songs queue when a song not from my playlist will be played. I also remembering listening to this song when I saw video edits. This song also started coming up in Instagram reels, and I got attracted to the voice singing of hiding and running from the daylight. This song had that angst vibe going on and I like listening to songs having the voice giving an angsty vibe, making me want to listen to it. Further listening to this song, made me hooked to the chorus of this song. I was hooked to “Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time/ You and I drink the poison from the same vine/Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time/Hidin’ all of our sins from the daylight/From the daylight, runnin’ from the daylight/From the daylight, runnin’ from the daylight/Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time”

As I further listened to it, sometimes wanting to drown in that dreamy voice of David Kushner, I was choosing this song more and more, wanting to start this song that would remind me of my ex sometimes. The singer’s voice similarity with Hozier and Isak Danielson made me also choose this singer’s song.

It was only few days ago I realised that this song could be about an affair. “Tellin’ myself it’s the last time/Can you spare any mercy that you might find/If I’m down on my knees again?” and “There’s darkness in the distance/From the way that I’ve been livin’ (ooh)/But I know I can’t resist it/Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time/You and I drink the poison from the same vine/Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time/Hidin’ all of our sins from the daylight” and “This lust is a burden that we both share/Two sinners can’t atone from a lone prayer/Souls tied, intertwined by our pride and guilt”

I am listening to this song again now, while I write this article, and I can tell, this is not about a love affair, nope. First two-three phrases “Telling myself, ‘I won’t go there’/Oh, but I know that I won’t care/Tryna wash away all the blood I’ve spilt” made me realise my mistake of thinking this song to be about affair.

Upon much listening and searching about this song, I got to know that this song is about light and darkness and about the other sins that could make us feel like hiding them from the ‘light’ of the day. According to the singer-songwriter, he himself tells that he talks about the complexities of his desires, the desire to be in the light and wanting to be on the right path but also not able to do it, failing to come out of the darkness and hiding from the daylight.

The contrast of daylight and darkness, the contrast of wanting to be on good path and resisting the darkness but at the same time hiding your sins, loving and hating the darkness at the same time, is somewhat I grapple from, and many people also do. Perhaps desire to do the right thing, but doing the wrong thing while knowing that it is wrong; loving and hating yourself at the same time and asking for mercy and forgiveness from God for your sins, is what I liked about the song after knowing more about it. The picture of hiding from the daylight made me feel a little heard.

This whole song could be liked by people who believe in the darkness and light and the binary-ness of the religion. I am not religious, yet the voice and the angst in it made me listen to it. On loop. Now I listen to it, again.