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Rebel Heart (The "Dark" Edition)


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If you take all the songs that have the word dark in them (or darkest), you will end up with 11 solid tracks, a number very common in Madonna's previous albums. I put the "dark" songs together, listened to them from start to finish and realized how melancholy the album would have been. It's definitely not a happy album, but I wouldn't really call it sad either. The "dark" songs are all about surviving, not losing hope, hanging on, staying brave, moving on... Interestingly, it made me think Madonna was in a dark place when she wrote all these songs, but she knew better as not to give up and to keep her focus on the Lighf. I donno. You guys might think this is weird. But considering that she's a Kabbalist, there are no coincidences in Kabbalah. Her putting the word "dark" in these 11 tracks (13 if you include Beautiful Scars and Addicted) must have a reason, some type of hidden message. It's definitely intriguing. Regardless, what would you guys think if Rebel Heart only consisted of these "dark" songs?

1. Living for Love

2. Devil Pray

3. Ghosttown

4. Illuminati

5. Joan of Arc

6. Hold Tight

7. Iconic

8. Inside Out

9. Veni Vidi Vici

10. Messiah

11. Rebel Heart

Bonus:

12. Beautiful Scars

13. Addicted

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Just because she says dark that doesn't make it a dark song though. Living For Love is NOT a dark track. Devil Pray is. Ghost town is far from dark. Dark is an atmosphere of solitude or of loss you can easily understand from the lyrics and of course the overall grasp from the sound of a particular track. Perfect example is Addicted; lyrically and sonically it's very dark. Gang Bang from MDNA obviously is another good example. Madonna's given us quite a few dark songs and she's good at delivering em but most of thhe songs from RH you mentioned above are not dark.

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Yeah, that's why I put dark in quotations. I don't think they're all dark, but there's something about Living for Love and Hold Tight for instance that makes you think she's been through a lot of darkness and she's learning to "carry on" and "hold tight", with all her "beautiful scars"...

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WAOM has a very dark sound.. It is also a ballad which makes it for sad songs but lyrically I think it's about hope. The song is about the struggles of life but this woman is not trying to avoid them or pretend they don't even exist. She accepts them and embrace them like walking through the storm.. It has a very empowering message which doesn't necessarily need to be sad or "dark".

Who am I to decide what should be done?

If this is THE END then LET IT COME.

It's a very Christian way of living life; accept the suffering ( I'm not running away from this sadness). And in that respect yes, the song is very "dark" because we are talking about pain but by contrast if we accept the pain we can find comfort ( Looking for the answer when it's right in front of me/ Like the tide let it rain, let it wash all over me) so in the end the message is positive and full of hope. Salvation is actually the tribulation basically.

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WAOM has a very dark sound.. It is also a ballad which makes it for sad songs but lyrically I think it's about hope. The song is about the struggles of life but this woman is not trying to avoid them or pretend they don't even exist. She accepts them and embrace them like walking through the storm.. It has a very empowering message which doesn't necessarily need to be sad or "dark".

Who am I to decide what should be done?

If this is THE END then LET IT COME.

It's a very Christian way of living life; accept the suffering ( I'm not running away from this sadness). And in that respect yes, the song is very "dark" because we are talking about pain but by contrast if we accept the pain we can find comfort ( Looking for the answer when it's right in front of me/ Like the tide let it rain, let it wash all over me) so in the end the message is positive and full of hope. Salvation is actually the tribulation basically.

I would say it's actually more spiritual than dark. People tend to forget that about Madonna's music. There's many songs that reflects religion, spirituality, heavenly peace and unity. She carries on the message just like she did originally in Ray Of Light.

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The WAOM demo gave me a hopeful feeling. The different production in the album version brings an incredibly melancholy feeling, and of resignation to one's fate, even though the lyrics are the same as the demo. It's beautiful, but to me very sad.

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Maybe for you the glass is half empty. lol I think it goes down the category of personal interpretation. Maybe I see hope and salvation in her accepting her fate and you see death and despair for exactly the same reasons.

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Guest bluejean

Just because she says dark that doesn't make it a dark song though. Living For Love is NOT a dark track. Devil Pray is. Ghost town is far from dark. Dark is an atmosphere of solitude or of loss you can easily understand from the lyrics and of course the overall grasp from the sound of a particular track. Perfect example is Addicted; lyrically and sonically it's very dark. Gang Bang from MDNA obviously is another good example. Madonna's given us quite a few dark songs and she's good at delivering em but most of thhe songs from RH you mentioned above are not dark.

Devil Pray is not dark either to me. It is a song of hope, of bringing people together to fight against evil.

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So in the end those songs are about Hope which is the opposite of dark.

Dark is not necessarily evil you silly! Dark can be a hardship in life. And Madonna put the word dark in these 11 songs, not me.
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Maybe for you the glass is half empty. lol I think it goes down the category of personal interpretation. Maybe I see hope and salvation in her accepting her fate and you see death and despair for exactly the same reasons.

No one is trying to convince you that her songs are miserable. What I tried to say in this thread was that all the songs that she put the word dark in them have something to do with some kind of struggle she went through or is going through or is trying to avoid.

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I made three homemade edition. A "Love" one, a "Warrior" one and a "Sex" one.

And i never play them because Rebel Heart works as a whole. I think that's why i love this album so much, because it shows so many sides. When I played those "editions" they were kinda void.

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Same!! I tried to make a "consistent" edition lol Never got into it!! I think the album is perfect as it is! :inlove:

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That's the thing I just didn't get as I thought dark was meant as the atmosphere of the song in terms of lyrics and sound or just sound. I'd say some songs can be seen as "dark" because their sound is very raw and melancholic but lyrically there's not much darkness in RH in my humble opinion.

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Guest bluejean

:lmao: @ this thread

Honestly while I think the album could be a masterpiece if culled to 12-14 tracks put in a different order I wouldn't bother because I really LOVE having a whole 23 track collection of such variety. And then we have dozens more demos to sit alongside it. It's just brilliant in every way.

Don't even get me started on the tour.

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Ugh! Never mind! You guys don't understand what I'm trying to say so I'm just not gonna sweat it lol

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  • 5 weeks later...

The WAOM demo gave me a hopeful feeling. The different production in the album version brings an incredibly melancholy feeling, and of resignation to one's fate, even though the lyrics are the same as the demo. It's beautiful, but to me very sad.

The original demo was a ballad. What you refer to as the demo is a second version where Avicii and co. tried to turn it into an uptempo number. For her it didn't work.

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