“Dark as the Night, Blue as the Day” was written by Bill Monroe and recorded by his Blue Grass Boys in 1959. The title itself is a small piece of bluegrass poetry, folding the darkness of night and the blueness of grief into a single phrase.
The song is a ballad of loneliness and heartbreak, paced slow enough to let Monroe’s high tenor and the band’s harmony carry its weight. It belongs to the deep vein of sorrow songs that runs through his writing alongside the hard-driving instrumentals.
The Nashville Bluegrass Band recorded it on their 2006 album The Boys Are Back in Town, and the song has been taken up by the Infamous Stringdusters and others — a later-Monroe piece that traditional bands have kept in good standing.
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