Ever hit play on a song and suddenly you’re swimming in colors from your past? Like purple skies from a road trip or red glows from late-night hang outs?
This playlist’s all about those tracks named after hues, mixing trippy indie vibes, soulful haze, and raw rock energy to unlock vivid feels. It’s perfect for when you need music to paint the memories you can’t quite name.
Here’s what our community members turn to when they need that pop of color in their listening lists.
Jenna Writes:
Color and music have always felt connected to me. Some people even experience this through synesthesia, a fascinating phenomenon where the brain links senses together, like seeing colors when hearing music. I often think about music in a colorful way, and I’ve explored that idea before in a couple of playlists. Kelch and I once looked at what the color orange might sound like, and Jane and I explored the sounds of red. So when this community playlist came up, I realized I had way too many songs with colors in the title that I love.
I ended up building a little rainbow with my contributions, moving through songs like Dark Red by Steve Lacy, Something in the Orange by Zach Bryan, Yellow by Coldplay, Evergreen by Richie Mitch & The Coal Miners, Blue by Young Kai, Ocean Blue by Sunshine Boulevard, Indigo by Sam Barber, The Color Violet by Tory Lanez, Pink + White by Frank Ocean, and White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes. Each one brings its own shade and mood, and together they form a colorful little corner of the playlist.
Jon Writes:
Red Right Hand by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Nick Cave’s best-known song thanks to appearances in the Scream movies and as the theme to
Peaky Blinders, the darkly ominous ‘Red Right Hand’ evokes an image of a shadowy figure, a “tall
handsome man”, a sinister and seductive killer. But more than that, he is a supernatural presence:
“He’s a god, he’s a man, he’s a ghost, he’s a guru”. And you do not want to run into him on the edge
of town because you are “one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan, designed and directed by his
red right hand”.
See also the live version from last year’s album Live God
Fun fact: Cave communicates directly with fans, answering their questions about life, the universe
and everything, via his own website/mailing list, The Red Hand Files.
Blue Lining, White Trenchcoat by Mando Diao
This feels like a fitting segue from ‘Red Right Hand’. It could be sung by the mysterious character so
spine-tinglingly evoked by Nick Cave. And his response is: “I’m going down with the sun. I’m going
down, down, down, down, down with the falling sun”.
I’ve loved Swedish rock band Mando Diao since their debut album Bring ‘Em In back in 2002; they
are well known around Europe, but never really broke the UK or USA. This is my favourite track from
their 2009 album Give Me Fire, which also features their best-known song ‘Dance with Somebody’.
Beginning with an irresistibly dirty bassline and deceptively soothing backing vocals, Björn Dixgård
adopts his most gravelly voice to sing about new clothes and Armageddon boots. I don’t know what
they are, but I’m sure the ‘Red Right Hand’ guy has a pair.
Fun fact: Lana Del Rey’s first ever TV performance was as a guest on Mando Diao’s MTV Unplugged
on MTV Germany on 2010.
Start Wearing Purple by Gogol Bordello
If you’re not singing along to this by the end, then you must have a heart of stone. Self-styled “gypsy
punk” by a New York-based band with Romanian/Ukrainian roots, they are fronted by the larger-
than-life Eugene Hütz whose distinctive accent (eg. “I know you since you were a-twonny”) mixes
philosophy and absurdism to a fiendishly catchy folk dance stomp bursting with crashing cymbals,
accordion, violin and backing vocal “ya-da-da-da-das”.
Fun fact: the lyrics namecheck cult Glasnost-era Russian band Zvuki Mu (Sounds of Moo) whose
debut album was produced by Brian Eno and who were the first Soviet band to record a session for
John Peel on BBC Radio 1.
Black Metallic by Catherine Wheel
This stand-out track from Catherine Wheel’s debut album Ferment is dreamy, epic pre-Britpop indie
rock that mixes oblique romantic poetry with shoegaze guitars. Despite coming close to making it big
in the US, the band eventually broke up in 2000 after the release of their fifth album and lead singer
Rob Dickinson eventually gave up music altogether to run a company customising and restoring
high-performance sports cars, which seems like a tragic waste of a magnificent musical talent, but
we will always have ‘Black Metallic’.
Fun fact: Rob Dickinson is the cousin of legendary Iron Maiden frontman and erstwhile passenger
airline pilot Bruce Dickinson.
Blue Orchid by White Stripes
The lead single from their hotly-anticipated fifth album Get Behind Me Satan, ‘Blue Orchid’ is a
somewhat cryptic diss track, claimed by some to be about Jack White’s breakup with Renée
Zellweger or an altercation with Jason Stollsteimer from indie rock band the Von Bondies. The words
“How dare you? How old are you now, anyway?” certainly sound like the embittered response to a
snub or a betrayal. in a darker take, Blue Orchid was the name of a Russian child pornography
website exposed in a joint US/Russian criminal investigation in 2000, which could certainly explain
the lyric “You took a white orchid and turned it blue”. But in interviews White insisted that the song
was really about his feelings towards the modern entertainment industry. And in the context of the
stripped-down, back-to-basics sound and hard-working ethic of The White Stripes in 2005, it’s
possible to understand ‘Blue Orchid’ in those terms, whatever the true meaning might once have
been.
Fun fact: British model Karen Elson met Jack White when she appeared in the ‘Blue Orchid’ video and
married him later the same year.
Colors by Beck
The title track of Beck’s 13th studio album is an irresistibly groovy dance track from an artist whose
work is constantly developing and surprising. Featuring a video that brings to mind classics like Daft
Punk’s ‘Around the World’ and New Order’s ‘True Faith’, it’s a vividly multi-coloured explosion of
movement and contemporary dance.
Fun fact: Colors was co-written by Greg Kurstin, Beck’s touring keyboard player, who also co-wrote
Adele’s ‘Hello’ and ‘Easy on Me’ and has worked as a producer and collaborator with artists as
diverse as Kylie Minogue, Gorillaz, Paul McCartney and the Foo Fighters.
Black and White Town by Doves
A stomping indie rock tune, ‘Black and White Town’ is an indictment of life in the dormitory suburbs
of Northern Britain: “In satellite towns, there’s no colour and no sound… gotta get out of this
satellite town”. Jimi Goodwin’s soothing vocal sweetens the pill that is the bleakly quotidian
existence – more like persistence – of being a place without culture.
Fun fact: the video for ‘Black and White Town’ was directed by acclaimed Scottish film director Lynne
Ramsay, best known for 2011’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, based on the novel by Lionel Shriver.
Le Blues Politaire by dEUS
This sultry, noir-ish, spoken-word tale of romance is so filled with evocative, laconic language that
it’s hard to pick out individual lines, from a first meeting “after a concert… post-hysterical relaxation”
to the second, making love under the stars in Bucharest, to the implosion of the affair in Paris where
“les trois ingrédients d’un Negroni bourdonnent comme des gueppes dans ma tete” (“the three
ingredients of a Negroni buzz like wasps in my head”). This “blues polaire” is a tale of doomed but
electrifying passion of two polar opposites attracted but inevitably repelled, told in six-and-a-half
minutes: “Une histoire d’amour ce developpe comme un polaroid parresseux de dévoiler ces vrais
couleurs” (“A love story unfolds like a lazy Polaroid to reveal its true colours”).
Fun fact: dEUS had a hiatus from around 2000 to 2004, during which founding member singer and
guitarist Tom Barman wrote and directed the cult Flemish/English/French-language Any Way the
Wind Blows.
La Vie en Rose by Grace Jones
If there’s a better version of Edith Piaf’s 1940s standard, I’d like to know about it. The formidable
diva’s voice has never sounded better than on this track produced by disco legend Tom Moulton, the
inventor of the remix. In an interview with Alexis Petridis in 2015 Moulton explained how he didn’t
want to record ‘La Vie en Rose’ with Grace Jones because he had already wasted time making a
recording of it with a singer called Teresa Wiater, who subsequently refused to sign a contract to
release the track, leaving Moulton with a bad feeling about the song. “She said she liked the
sensuality of the track,” Moulton recalled, “And then, every time she did La Vie en Rose onstage,
she’d say: ‘I want to thank… that bitch for not signing that contract’.”
Fun fact: ‘La Vie en Rose’ was Grace Jone’s first hit record, criminally edited down to 3:35 from the
full-length 7:27.
Andie Writes:
I wanted to kick this off with Portugal. The Man’s “Purple Yellow Red and Blue” from their Evil Friends album; it’s this trippy, euphoric jam that paints such wild pictures in your head!!! Then U2’s “Ultra Violet (Light My Way)”? For me this hits hard with raw emotion from Achtung Baby. Just pure energy begging for a spark. Hiatus Kaiyote’s “Red Room” brings smooth neo-soul haze from Mood Valiant, like chilling in a sunset-lit hideaway. I remember I got to know this track and artist from a fellow musicto community member, and I never got tired of the track since! Finally, I had to end my picks with Symbiosis’ moody “Red River” for some deep feels. A really mellow tune that the slow-indie music lover in me will always turn up!!
Track Listing:
- Purple Yellow Red and Blue – Portugal. The Man
- Ultra Violet (Light My Way) – U2
- Red Room – Hiatus Kaiyote
- Red River – The Symposium
- Yellow Ledbetter – Pearl Jam
- Dark Red – Steve Lacy
- Something in the Orange – Zach Bryan
- Yellow – Coldplay
- Evergreen – Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners
- blue – yung kai
- Ocean Blue – sunshine blvd.
- Deep Blue – HIGHTEENS
- Indigo (feat. Avery Anna) – Sam Barber, Avery Anna
- The Color Violet – Tory Lanez
- Pink + White – Frank Ocean
- White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes
- Red Right Hand – 2011 Remastered Version – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
- Blue Lining, White Trenchcoat – Mando Diao
- Start Wearing Purple – Gogol Bordello
- Black Metallic – Catherine Wheel
- Blue Orchid – The White Stripes
- Colors – Beck
- Black And White Town – Doves
- Le Blues Polaire – dEUS
- La Vie en rose – Grace Jones
Playlist Image by Woliul Hasan on Unsplash
