By Loud Atlas
Think back to your younger days - grabbing the red, blue, and yellow paints, mixing them together, staring in wonder, or horror, at your creations. You might have created Pantone 448 C, the ugliest colour in the world (it's a murky brown), or perhaps the International Orange like that of the Golden Gate bridge? Those are the lesser-known cousins, the niche shades and humble hues we were after this week.
Beigey brown, understated and good on your living room wall, Nutria is about as uncelebrated as a colour can get. It's the subject of one of Ken Nordine's spoken word songs from his collection of colour-based ditties. Nutria's ROYGBIV relations might be able to give it boost and really make something of it...or not.
A rich imagery-filled song next from the luscious lungs of Ella Fitzgerald. Ruby, alabaster, silver and crystalline are among the colours name-checked as she enjoys the Midnight Sun of a new romance. A delicious arrangement and sumptuously sung.
Skip forward several decades and that "new romance feeling" is still a popular musical trope (love really never gets old, does it?). This time Taylor Swift's stuck in a Lavender Haze - a perfectly hazy timbre to the dream pop tune too. Love and fame sound a bit of a complicated mix in the 21st century.
Banned by the BBC, famously misinterpreted, with its meaning endlessly discussed, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds also happens to be filled with a surreal mixture of colours and psychedelic imagery: tangerine trees, marmalade skies, kaleidoscope eyes - so pretty much all of the colours there could ever be. The Beatles at their most dreamlike.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have a history with animals of the equine variety. In their most recent album, turpentine trees and a strawberry moon are the evocative images within Cinnamon Horses, an expressive emotional song about coming out of a period of suffering (Nick's had more than his fair share of tragedy).
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so they say, but at the fingertips of Claude Debussy that beauty is elevated to angelic heights. La fille aux cheveux de lin ("The Girl With The Flaxen Hair") is a prime slice of impressionistic music. Flaxen, by the way, is a lovely pale shade of yellow. Originally for solo piano, this version features the violin too.
The Girl With The Flaxen Hair
In his 1983 novel The Colour of Magic, Terry Prachett adopted Octarine as the colour of magic – a fluorescent greenish-yellow purple colour that only wizards and cats could see. It was "the King Colour, of which all the lesser colours are merely partial and wishy-washy reflections". It's possible that The Mercury Tree were aware of that in their song of the same name. At least, I'd like to think so.
That vibrant green that shares its name with a distinctive and eye-wateringly expensive alcoholic beverage? Chartreuse, that's the one. Apparently, it's better than magenta, better than puce - hard to disagree with the latter. ZZ Top bring their distinctive beard-energised power chords.
Talking of shades of green, Black Box Recorder satirically present a dark shade of the colour associated with a sector of British society. British Racing Green, the international motor racing colour of the UK, opens up doors to a certain lifestyle, for better or worse as it turns out.
There were plenty of blue songs nominated this week - but none quite with the distinctive shade found in Wallflower Lonely, Cornflower Blue (a medium-light blue). Bonus points for being sung in a bluesy fashion by the colourfully-named Blossom Dearie.
There's not much I can write about Prejudice without giving away the punchline...but let's say it's for the 1-2%. Performed by Tim Minchin - expect mischievous wordplay!
A colour combination is given the mambo treatment next. Pérez Prado and his shimmering brass section represent Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White in a bright and sparkling fashion, with slurred trumpets and a grand ending.
Our final track of this list has an array of colours navy, orange, sky blue, camelia and olive (watch them all being pointed out in the vibrant video). All of these are (if my translation is correct) ideas of what colour Present Tomoo's got in mind for her loved one - or perhaps her loved one comes in those shades too. Either way, all she cares about is making them happy. The production and energy are toe-tappingly infectious, and a real delight.
Over in the Bs we have another spectrum of colours: a Frenchman's greyish-brown hat, some spicy spice, and an exotically-named exotic dancer.
Alternative Imbuement A-List Playlist:
Ken Nordine - Nutria (SweetHomeAlabama)
Ella Fitzgerald - Midnight Sun (severin)
Taylor Swift - Lavender Haze (Marconius7)
The Beatles - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Noodsy)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Cinnamon Horses (Vikingchild)
Claude Debussy - La fille aux cheveux de lin ("The Girl With The Flaxen Hair") (Uncleben)
The Mercury Tree - Octarine (happyclapper)
ZZ Top - Chartreuse (Vikingchild)
Black Box Recorder - British Racing Green (tincanman2010)
Blossom Dearie - Wallflower Lonely, Cornflower Blue (pejepeine)
Tim Minchin - Prejudice (ajostu)
Pérez Prado - Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White (SweetHomeAlabama)
Tomoo - Present (ajostu)
Not Just Any Old Blue and More B-List Playlist:
Misty - Hot Cinnamon (ShivSidecar)
Donovan - Wear Your Love Like Heaven (Nicko)
Jorge Ben - Magnólia (pejepeine)
Altered Images - Pinky Blue (Maki)
Cocteau Twins - Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops (ParaMhor)
Adam Bosange - Olivine (SongBarLandlord)
Charles Aznavour - Le feutre taupé (Uncleben)
Enya - Caribbean Blue (vastariner)
Manic Street Preachers - Sepia (Vikingchild)
Stevie Nicks - Sable on Blond (Naguchi)
Fleetwood Mac - Emerald Eyes (Fred Erickson)
The Tinkerbells - Hazel Eyes (TatankaYotanka)
Vaughn Monroe - Tangerine (Nicko)
Guru's Wildcard Picks:
Paramore - Rose-Colored Boy
Not the glasses, but the boy with a view on the world which isn't realistic. A rose-coloured tinge in the latter parts of the video, for good measure.
Yussuf Deyes (ft. Tom Misch) - Rust
A favourite of mine from the last few years (and also a wildcard pick for Brown week last year). That distinct kind of russety colour. What a drummer.
Daniel Blumberg - Steel
This featured in the recent film The Brutalist - used in an industrial montage full of mechanised colours at a pivotal point of the film. It's not just any kind of grey.
Corinne Bailey Rae - Peach Velvet Sky
Corinne's 2023 album Black Rainbows was a diversion from her usual style. Here, twinkly piano accompanies her beautiful vocals.
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations in response to last week's topic: A different tone: songs featuring obscure or uncommon colours. The next topic will launch on Thursday after 1pm UK time.
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