‘I see a red door and I want it painted black/no colours anymore I want them to turn black.’
Two lines from a popular song by a band that continues to redefine longevity. It doesn’t need two guesses, I think, as to what Mick Jagger was singing about. Heartbroken-ness, the erosion of self-confidence; that time in a life when colour doesn’t matter because every colour inevitably bleeds into dark shadows.
I have wondered whether Paint It Black would have had the same lasting appeal if its arrangement had been altered. Slowed down to a dirge, to match the lyric. I’m pretty sure, with all respect to the melody making talent of the Stones, the song wouldn’t have received as much airplay as it did at the time and still does with retro music lovers. The quick-trotting pace invested in its rhythm acts as counterpoint to the stubbornly set dark lyrics. It’s almost like the music/instruments are saying: “If the singer is not going to budge from his viewpoint we’re going to do our best to carry him through to the end, transport him at a nice pace.” Somehow, despite its heavy theme, it is the melody we come away with, the melody we hear even when we catch ourselves singing the song later.
This song was an early example for me in noticing genius behind song composition, not merely writing lyrics and quickly strapping on the guitars to pick out a tune. You wanted listeners to identify with a lyric, perhaps even recollect, “I’ve been there. I know what a break up is. I’ve seen blackness.” But you also want, as the composer, to keep your listener from becoming so distraught they turn off the song.
Amazing mix
Which is where balance kicks in, I suspect; the high-wire act of deciding what melody at what pace best matches the words. And given the pace at which record companies force bands to cough up new material, it’s even greater testament to a group’s skills that it can continue putting out music for decades.
All this ruminating, of course, was brought about following a recent ‘colour in music’ show. Three hours of song, dance, dinner and discourse (not necessarily in that order). The occasion is an amazing mix of retro and contemporary. The only proviso being that the songs played contain a reference to colour. So, a blast of hues from the past (Badfinger’s Baby Blue, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road) meets more recent bands singing of the same colours (Coldplay’s Yellow, Regina Spektor’s Blue Lips). I hadn’t heard a single mention of colour in the song Lose Control (hearing it for the first time) only to be told it was by a band called Kish Mauve. Which, of course, allowed Shocking Blue in, and wasn’t it good listening for a change, not to Venus, not even Mighty Joe, but Inkpot.
“One of the most underrated groups of that era,” as Derek. M. points out. Derek’s a music critic for a magazine, one of the show’s organisers. “Now that gives me an idea,” he adds, “the next show can be about unheard-of gems and little-known trivia. Unheard of simply because we all got so caught up on the hit of that time by the band. How many, for example, remember the brother and sister duo Nino Tempo and April Stevens? Everyone of a certain age has heard their hit Deep Purple. Not many know it was meant to be the B side to another song. Their record label had another song it wanted them to do as the A side. The song was, ‘I’ve been carrying a torch for you so long that it burned a great big hole in my heart’.
It held the record for the longest title on a B side until Prince happened along with 17 Days (The Rain Will Come Down Then U Will Have 2 Choose If You Believe. Look 2 The Dawn And U Shall Never Lose).
Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.
