Demi Lovato’s “Dancing with the Devil” Lyrics Meaning

As detailed in this article’s lower section, the title of this song (“Dancing with the Devil”) also serves as the title of a documentary which Demi Lovato put out in early 2021. 

You can view the lyrics, alternate interprations and sheet music for Demi Lovato's Dancing with the Devil at Lyrics.org.

The said program centers on a specific incident in her life, which was Lovato ODing on opioids – and nearly dying in the process – in 2018. 

Prior to that she had already publicly-acknowledged an addiction to drugs which many, apparently even Demi herself, were under the impression that she had already bested.  But no, afterwards she decided to ‘dance with the devil’ yet again.

Dancing with the Devil

“Dancing with the devil”, as you probably already know, is basically another way of saying that someone is doing something, dangerous in particular, that they know they shouldn’t. 

Or put differently they are knowingly engaged in an optional activity that will likely lead to some type of self-harm. And again in Lovato’s case, such was dabbling with drugs.

So for example, at the beginning of the first verse we see her entertaining a very-small amount of booze. 

Well, to those who have never been addicted to alcohol it may be “just a little red wine”.  But to a recovering addict such as Demi was the time, it ultimately led to a full relapse. 

And in rationalizing her decision to partake in the first place, she followed the same line of reasoning which commonly leads to such failures. For instance, considering that she had been able to practice sobriety for some time, what would a tiny drink hurt? 

Indeed after such an accomplishment she deserves one. 

And in the bridge other allusions are made to ways she fooled herself, so to speak, into wrongdoing. Or simply put, she deceived herself into believing she was in control of the situation, able to stop after just one hit if you will, when in reality she wasn’t.

But in reality what she was doing the whole time was “dancing with the devil”. For as detailed in the second verse, crossing that “little white line”, i.e. compromising in such a miniscule way, again led to her abusing harder drugs, such as hero-n apparently. 

And this became apparent to her in the aftermath, where she got painfully close to actually reaching the hereafter. Or as the songstress puts it, she ‘gambled with her soul’ and resultantly “almost made it to heaven”.

Conclusion

So the conclusive sentiment of this track, as expressed in the bridge, would be something like the singer seeking forgiveness for her relapse. 

This is not only seemingly from a Higher Power but also from her fans, whom she feels she misled and let down. And with that in mind, the actual thesis sentiment of the entire track would be her learning, the hard way, not to ‘dance with the devil’.

Lyrics of "Dancing with the Devil"

Facts about “Dancing with the Devil”

This is the title track of both a documentary and an album Demi Lovato has come / is coming out with. 

Both projects are entitled, in full, “Dancing With the Devi… the Art of Starting Over”. The documentary, which is actually a four-part series, began airing in late March 2021. 

The song was also released during that time, more specifically on 26 March 2021, serving as the lead single from the album. And the album is slated to come out shortly thereafter, on 2 April. 

Dancing with the Devil

And the project is a product of Island Records, a label she became associated with in 2015.

Demi Lovato is one of the authors of this song, completing that task alongside Blush, John Ho and the track’s producer, Mitch Allan.

Dancing With the Devil is Demi’s seventh full-length album. The previous six were released between 2008 and 2017. 

Thus her last album before this one was 2017’s “Tell Me You Love Me”. And stateside her most-successful out of the group, in terms of chart showing, has been 2009’s “Here We Go Again”, her second album, which topped the Billboard 200. 

Meanwhile as far as her singles go 2017’s “Sorry Not Sorry” would perhaps be the most-notable, considering for instance that it was quintuple-platinum certified by the RIAA in 2020.

Prior to being hospitalized on 24 July 2018 as the result of an opioid overdose, which is the incident which inspired this song, Demi Lovato had recently reached being sober for a good six years. 

But she relapsed some time around June 2018. Or that was the narrative that was put for her track, “Sober”, which came out during said month.

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