Colourful Songs

Wed Jun 04 2014
Diary

After being inspired by a request from Alex Cann (‘im off Stray FM) to suggest colourful songs for a playlist for the St Michael’s hospice Colour Rush on the 20th June, I’ve got all excited and decided to blog it!

Off the top of my head, we have a collection of singles:

  • “Fergus Sings the Blues”
  • “Black or White”
  • “Since You’ve been gone” (by Rainbow)
  • “Green Door”
  • “Red Red Wine”
  • “Itsy Bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini”
  • “The Race” (by Yello)
  • “Blue Suede Shoes”
  • “Summertime Blues”
  • “Blue Velvet”
  • “Black velvet”
  • “Pink Sunshine” (by Fuzzbox. Maybe a little obscure, but a fab track)
  • “Yellow submarine”
  • “Little Red Corvette”
  • “Raspberry Beret”
  • “Purple Rain”
  • “Purple Haze”
  • “Blue [da boo dee]”
  • “Blueberry Hill”
  • “Gold”
  • “Brown eyed girl”
  • “Brown girl in the ring”
  • “Painter Man”
  • “Golden Brown”
  • “True Blue” (knew there’d be one by Madge)
  • “Hazy shade of winter”
  • “Pink Cadillac”
  • “True colours”
  • “Warpaint” (Brook Bros)
  • “Blue Monday”> (New Order)
  • “White Lines (don’t do it)”
  • “Matchstick men” (just ‘cos they get painted!)
  • “Mr Blue Sky”

Some of these led me one to think about colourful artists – you could have anything by, Blue, Pink, Deacon Blue, Colour me bad, Hue and Cry, Red Hot Cilli Peppers,  Black Lace, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Blue Pearl (Naked in the Rain!), Bluebells, Blues Brothers, Bobby Brown, James Brown, Sam Brown, Nenah Cherry (perhaps), Green Day, Simply Red,

I’m afraid I then decided to dig a little deeper – what about No. 1s? (some already mentioned above)

  • “She wears red feathers”, Guy Mitchell – 1953
  • “Moulin Rouge”, Mantovani – 1953
  • “Cherry pink and apple blossom white”, Perez Prado – 1955
  • “Rose Marie”, Slim Whitman – 1955
  • “Singing the Blues”, various (!) – 1956
  • “Blue Moon”, Marcels – 1961
  • “Lovesick Blues”, Frank Ilfield – 1962
  • “Little Red Rooster”, the Stones – 1964
  • “Paint it black”, and again – 1965
  • “Yellow Submarine”, Beatles – 1966
  • “Green green grass of home”, Tom Jones – 1966
  • “Silence is golden”, Tremeloes – 1967
  • “Whiter shade of pale”, Procol Harem  – 1967
  • “Lily the pink”, Scaffold – 1968 and 69
  • “Yellow River”, Christie – 1970
  • “Band of gold”, Freda Payne – 1970
  • “Tie a yellow ribbon…”, Dawn  et al- 1973
  • “Silver lady”, David Soul – 1977
  • “Green door”, Shakey! – 1980
  • “Red red wine”, UB40 – 1983
  • “Karma chameleon”, Boy George – 1983
  • “99 Red Ballons”, Nena – 1984
  • “Lady in Red”, Chris de Burgh – 1986
  • “True Blue” , Madonna- 1986
  • “itsy bitsy”, Bombalurina – 1990
  • “Any dream will do”, Jase – 1991 (honorary mention cos of the whole coat thing)
  • “Black or White”, Michael Jackson – 1991
  • “Come on you reds”, Man U FC(!) – 1994
  • “Men in black”, Will Smith, 1997
  • “Blue (da ba dee)”, Eiffel 64 – 1999
  • “Black coffee”, All Saints – 2000
  • “Five colours in her hair”, McFly –  2004
  • “The Rose”, Westlife – 2006
  • “Ruby”, Kaiser Chiefs – 2007
  • “Green Light”, Roll Deep – 2010
  • “Spectrum (say my name)”, Florence and the machine – 2012

And finally an honorary mention to some ska, and couple of classics:

  • Red Radio – The Specials
  • Orange Street – Madness
  • Rhapsody in Blue – Gershwin
  • Blue Danube – Strauss