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Dark Red (song)

2017 song by Steve Lacy

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ137640065 ↗
Source-derived summary

"Dark Red" is a song by American musician Steve Lacy. The track was solely written and produced by Lacy and was initially featured on his 2017 debut solo EP, Steve Lacy's Demo.

The song achieved commercial success in North America several years after its initial release. The song is considered a sleeper hit. In the United States, "Dark Red" peaked at number 78 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 2022. It also charted on Billboards genre-specific listings, including reaching number four on both the Hot R&B Songs chart and the Rock Streaming Songs chart in September 2021. In Canada, the song reached number 71 on the Canadian Hot 100. The song had over 2 billion streams on Spotify, being Lacy's most streamed song as of July 2026.

Release history

Reception

The song, along with the rest of the Steve Lacy's Demo EP, was frequently noted for its unique production method. It was written and recorded entirely by Lacy using the GarageBand application on his iPhone.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Dark Red (song)” is 2017 song by Steve Lacy. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Dark, song and Steve, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2017, 2022, 2021, 2026—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Dark, song and Steve is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “2017 song by Steve Lacy” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q137640065. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2017, 2022, 2021 and 2026.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Dark Red (song)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Dark Red (song) primary sources, Dark Red (song) archive and Dark research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dark Red (song)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Dark Red (song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.