Music Notes

Shots, by ID

My fifth track is the lead single from Imagine Dragons 2015 sophomore album Smoke + Mirrors. Full of anguish and a deep sense of loss and confusion, it's a song which has spoken powerfully to me from the moment I discovered it.

In October 2017, I was starting out on my journey of musical exploration, and I had not had much experience with Imagine Dragons. Believer, from their third album Evolve, had dropped that summer, taking the world by storm. The unforgettably explosive declaration of strength in pain, unlike anything I'd heard before, grabbed my fancy and wouldn't let go. Yet their 2012 breakout hit Demons frightened me (super long story behind that…) I didn't know if they were decent people, or if they lived up to the old wives tale of rock stars who literally sold their souls to the devil for fame and fortune.

One afternoon as I sat in a McDonald's in Greenville South Carolina, I found myself lazily doing Google Sound Searches on every song drifting by overhead. I wasn't paying much attention to any of it, until one: Shots. Seeing it was a song I hadn't heard yet from Imagine Dragons, I immediately looked up the lyrics to analyze it… and came to tears right there in the restaurant:

"I'm sorry for everything, oh everything I've done
From the second that I was born it seems I had a loaded gun
And then I
Shot

Shot

Shot

A hole through everything I loved
Oh I
Shot

Shot

Shot

A hole through every single thing that I loved…"

I never knew anyone else felt the way I did. I couldn't believe someone would be brave enough to say it in a song. I knew then, Imagine Dragons was a band worthy of my time. Every word of Shots resonated within me as if I'd written it myself. This was my introduction to ID's Smoke + Mirrors album, and I'll never forget it.

I don't know how many times I've cried over Shots since then, sometimes for myself, and sometimes for Dan Reynolds, as I see him reiterating his words with new weight as his life changes. It's a song I try to save for special moments, afraid to allow it to become "just another song" drifting by every so often on a shuffle mix. I have several versions of it on my playlist, including a lullaby instrumental rendition from Rockabye Baby.

Being the lead single, ID poured themselves into its music video and made it spectacular. I haven't yet told you the story of Tim Cantor  , the surrealist oil painter who ID hired to create cover art for each track on Smoke + Mirrors. They had the idea of bringing each painting to life on the video and sending Dan through them all like Alice in Wonderland. You have to see it.

This album and the art associated with it taught me how to embrace, process and accept darker and heavier emotions. I learned to create beauty out of pain, and I did so alongside someone I trust. As a person with almost no real world connections, this means a lot to me.

I chose it particularly because last year there were several live versions (including an acoustic with a string orchestra backing, not shown here because I had to extract it myself from an hour long show) and I spent more time with it than I usually do.

Words: 560.