Songfacts®:

• This instrumental (or at least wordless) song was written by Ritchie Blackmore for his Renaissance music project Blackmore's Night. The title is an antonym of "Whiter Shade Of Pale," the famous song by Procol Harum. Both songs incorporate elements of the Bach composition "Air On A G String."
  
  Blackmore told Songfacts: "I came up with the title after the music. I'm a big follower of Bach and the transcending descending ri?s that he would play often like "Air On A G String" and stu? like that. That kind of was in my brain when I was playing that.
  
  And the descending sequence was almost like "A Whiter Shade of Pale," which was based on Bach. So, I thought we'd call it 'Darker Shade Of Black' rather than 'A Whiter Shade of Pale.' And that was the title we threw in."
• Blackmore plays mandolin, electric guitar and acoustic guitar on this track. Candice night adds tambourine and vocals, and Scarlet Fiddler plays violin and fiddle.
• This first appeared on the 2015 Blackmore's Night album, All Our Yesterdays, but they also included it on their next one, Nature's Light, in 2021. The song is one of Blackmore's favorites, so he thought it was worth issuing again.