Daylight
Song Meaning

“Daylight” is David Kushner’s cry to God about giving into darkness and temptation while knowing he should turn toward the light 1. He wrote it from a vulnerable place as an apology and a plea for mercy, admitting he cannot overcome the struggle alone 1. The song frames that conflict as an uphill battle: you tell yourself you will not give in, then realize you have done it before and likely will again 1, while two sinners hide shared lust, pride, and guilt from the daylight 1. Kushner has said it names a fight everyone faces, knowing what is right and struggling to live it 1.

The meaning

“Daylight” is David Kushner’s account of giving into darkness while knowing he should turn toward the light. He has said he wrote it “from such a vulnerable place in my heart,” describing darkness that “grew in my life like a root beneath a tree” even as he knew he “should be giving more into the light” 1. The song took shape shortly after he moved to Los Angeles, when a chorus came out on piano during a break from another track 1. That chorus, he explained, is “the climax in the story in daylight” 1.

The opening verse is already past the point of clean resistance. Kushner described “telling yourself you won’t go there” as the darkness that can take hold “if you give into certain things and you have these certain Temptations” 1. The next beat is the admission that you will not care, because “I’ve done it before I’ve messed up before”: not perfection, but “this like constant like uphill battle to the daylight” 1. After verse one, he said, the person “already given into that thing that they know that they shouldn’t have,” seeing “this black cloud” of darkness infiltrating their life 1. The pre-chorus names the same bind: “darkness in the distance from the way that I’ve been living,” and the feeling of being unable to resist it 1.

That fall is also shared. Kushner pointed to lust as “a burden that we both share,” two sinners trying to atone, with “souls tied in a twine by our pride and guilt” 1. The chorus holds the contradiction at the song’s center: “I love it and I hate it at the same time,” two people drinking “the poison from the same vine” while “hidin’ all of our sins from the daylight.” Running from daylight is running from the light he knew he should give more into 1, and from the exposure of sins the singers would rather keep hidden.

Parts of the song are written as Kushner speaking directly to God. He described it as saying “I’m sorry I know I need to get away from this thing and I’m trying my best is there any Mercy that you can find to spare me,” calling it his “cry out” that he “can’t do this by myself” 1. Verse two makes that plea explicit (“Can you spare any mercy,” “Lord, I try / Try to follow your light, but it’s nighttime”). The second pre-chorus tightens the knot: “this darkness in the distance I’m begging for forgiveness but I know I’m my resistance” 1.

That resistance is inward as much as it is spiritual. Kushner said it is “super hard to forgive ourselves even after we’ve tried so hard to get that forgiveness,” and that people often resist the forgiveness they receive because of “all the shame all the guilt all the baggage that came with it” 1. He has framed the whole song as bigger than one confession: “this is something that we’re all dealing with,” a shared battle of “knowing what’s right and our goal” 1. “Daylight” is that battle set to a chorus that loves and hates the same poison, running from the light it is still begging to reach.

Last updated 2026-09-02