‘Rainbow in the Dark’, a song by heavy metal titans Dio, is one of their most unique and oddly uplifting tracks. The introduction of an upbeat keyboard backs sunnier lyrics than Dio’s normal output: “I cry out for magic, I feel it dancing in the light.” Despite its success, Ronnie James Dio almost destroyed the master tapes to the classic hit, convinced the song was too poppy and would clash with the other, admittedly heavier tracks on Holy Diver.
“I absolutely hated that song,” Dio once said. “I hated that song in context to what I was trying to accomplish with the album.” The bulk of the LP, recorded in early 1983 in Los Angeles’ Sound City Studios, explored ideas like personal agency, disenchantment with life, and Biblical figures.
Its iconic album artwork featured a demonic entity drowning a priest, which goes some way to explaining why ‘Rainbow in the Dark’ and its earnest message to let go of personal demons might not have fit Dio’s vision. Still, it’s considered a classic song from an even more classic album, one which Corey Taylor covered in the memorial album Ronnie James Dio – This Is Your Life, and Norwegian rockers Jorn covered on 2016’s Heavy Rock Radio.
A deep-set fear of sounding too commercial followed Dio throughout his career after being ousted from Rainbow for refusing to sing what he reckoned was “pop-punk rubbish” in 1979. But nonetheless, the song was a signature single from Holy Diver, which featured a blistering riff that began as the Sweet Savage track, ‘Lady Marianne’.
Sweet Savage was the Belfast-based band Dio guitarist Vivian Campbell had started at just 16. Campbell played it for drummer Vinny Appice and bassist Jimmy Bain at the studio when Dio walked in and started singing the melody on top of it.
Appice then took to a Yahama keyboard the band had set up, came up with the delightful motif heard on ‘Rainbow in the Dark’, and the song was essentially completed in ten minutes. The track’s accompanying video was filmed shortly after in central London and follows a pretty nefarious-looking man following a woman through the streets. During a frenzied guitar solo, Campbell and Bain scare him off, seemingly with the sheer force of their shredding, as the woman dances triumphantly.
Dio’s efforts on ‘Rainbow in the Dark’, no matter his personal opinion on the song, mark a trifecta of classics for him, having had his hand in not only Holy Diver but Rainbow’s Rainbow Rising and Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell.
His onstage surname, ‘Dio’, is Italian for God, and it’s quite fitting that an absolute titan of heavy metal, able to create three of its best albums, was given such a name.
