Chris Rusin Releases The Dark– A song to listen to by the fire 

For release July 11th, 2025 

Denver Colorado – It’s sit by the fire season and this song is about that in a way. In another way it is also entirely about something else haha. Give a listen and you’ll understand. When I set out to record “The Dark” in the studio, Shane Zweygardt brought in a huge Civil War drum and every time he would bash that thing I would laugh so hard that I almost ruined the take because it sounded so awesome and spacious. So listen for that. A simple song on my Collings Mohagany guitar, backed again by Katie Wise on vocals, Russick Smith on Cello, and John Pual Grigsby on bass. Produced by a Engineered by Andrew Berlin (Gregory Alan Isakov) and Mastered by Jason Livermore. We worked hard to weave these parts together into something delicate and I hope you enjoy it.

Where “The Dark” Came From

I have always loved the song “February” by Dar Williams and its use of an extended metaphor to talk about a relationship. I aspired to write one like that and “The Dark” is the result. We all know couples that seemed perfect but then just somehow grew out of love and parted. Then we, their friends, are left to guess at what happened or question if that could happen to us. Maybe the truth is that you’re always either building something up or tearing it down over time? So be kinder to your partner and listen to this tune together 🙂 or watch it on youtube.

“The Dark” Music Video

“The Dark” is my first attempt at an animated music video. I worked with Nadeera, an animator from Sri Lanka and learned how painstaking animation is and how hard it is to tell a story with stop motion. This video was a few months in the making and is a simple visual version of the lyrics. You can check it out here!

A Special Thank You

I want to thank you for listening and sharing this music with others. It really does mean a lot to me to have this chance and every listen and share matters. To date over 100K people have viewed the music videos on the Chris Rusin Music youtube channel and there have been over 40K streams of the songs on spotify. Pretty exciting for a dude from Clear Lake Minnesota who almost didn’t put this music out there. 

“The Dark” Lyrics

Him:
We were blind alone and walking through the night when we collided in a spark
Her:
your smiling face was the first thing that I saw
Both
as we stepped into the light out of the dark
The more we burned the harder it got to gather more to keep us hot
Him:
maybe I grew tired of trying
both:
‘cause I lost you to the dark
him:
in the end. you were my best friend
both:
I’ll carry all my arms can hold but we still grew cold yeah we still grew cold.
Him:
I swore we would make it through til morning but it never came
Her:
and I don’t want to go back out there
Him:
I don’t want to tell you that its over but I just did I just did I just did.
both:
The more we burned the harder it got to gather more to keep us hot
Her:
maybe I grew tired of lying
both:
‘cause I lost you to the dark
her:
in the end. you were my best friend
Both:
I’ll carry all my arms can hold but we still grew cold yeah we still grew cold

Written and performed by Chris Rusin copyright 2025.