8 Stunning Colors That Are Actually Song Titles

In honor of National Coloring Book Day and National Crayon Day, I asked our listeners for rock songs that make great crayon colors. The answers were above and beyond anything I could have thought of alone. What songs come to mind when you think of colors that are actually song titles?

Side note: if you’re looking for a rocking adult coloring book, the Ozzy Osborne Coloring Book exists.

Classic Rock Colors: Paint vs Crayons

My daughter and her husband recently bought a house. They’re going nuts with paint colors. I know that excitement. When my family was living in Maryland, we rented a condo for 11 years. WHITE WALLS.

I had enough of white walls after 11 years and I went color crazy when we moved back to Michigan. I had an orange kitchen and a yellow entryway. Every room was a color other than white.

Now our house is pretty neutral in color, but with my daughter’s living room being painted “Plumville,” it started me creatively thinking about cool colors that are actually song titles.

My first thought was “Purple Haze.”  I love this color name but I would probably not paint any rooms in my house purple.  I would, however, want it in my crayon box.

Donielle Flynn

Picking Colors Was a Group Effort

I love asking opinions on social media.  I recently asked, “What classic rock songs could also be a crayon color?”  The answers were AMAZING. People didn’t just answer with song titles that had a color in them (not that I don’t love those answers too).  They got CREATIVE.

One of my favorite submissions was “Night Moves.”  I would 100% paint a room in “Night Moves.”  What I loved about this response was that it didn’t technically have a color word in it… it was more about the FEELS.  I picture a smokey gray, personally, but it’s totally open to your interpretation. 

After a considerable amount of back and forth (these colors are serious business) here are the top 8 choices.

8 Stunning Colors That Are Actually Song Titles

• Back In Black

  No crayon box could be complete without “Back in Black.” I think it would also make for a wonderful paint color or nail polish name. “Back in black, I hit the sack. I’ve been too long, I’m glad to be back.” This color has attitude for days… and decades. &nbsp

• Yellow Ledbetter

  The name of the song has been the subject of numerous different theories. Some say the phrase come from Blues legend, Huddy Ledbetter and a spin-off an age-old tongue-twister, “Yellow better, red better.” Truth be known, Eddie Vedder named it after a friend, Tim Ledbetter. There is a deeper meaning behind the song that AmericanSongwriter.com covers. “Yellow Ledbetter” to me is a deep shade of yellow that matches the heartbreak lyrics of Eddie Vedder.

• Red Rain

  I love the name as a color, but in an interview with Mojo Magazine, Gabriel talked about the song originating from a dream. “The sea was being parted by two walls. There were these glass-like figures that would screw themselves into each wall, fill up with red blood and then be lowered across the sand, as it were to the next wall, where they’d unload the blood on the other side. I used to have these extremely vivid dreams that scared the hell out of me.”

  I always thought the song was pretty soothing, but that dream… that’s not soothing.

• Brown Sugar

  This Rolling Stones classic pairing of extremely serious lyrics mixed with a snappy, happy upbeat arrangement makes Brown Sugar that crayon (or paint color) that has deep meaning but also likes to dance.

• Midnight Blue

  Midnight Blue definitely makes for a stunning color name.  Lou Gramm explained the song in an interview with Songfacts. Cherry red is “everything going as best as it can,” while midnight blue is “dark and mysterious.”

• Tangerine

  Tangerine is a “real” color (and a fruit), but to have tangerine in my box of song crayons would be very special.  A Led Zeppelin influenced “Tangerine” would make the color a cut above the rest.  Also, I’m not ruling out Tangerine as a paint color on an accent wall… not my entire kitchen, but an accent wall, for sure.

• White Rabbit

  Grace Slick noticed a lot of children’s stories revolved around mind-altering substances and she decided to write a song about it. This shade of white should still have a touch of darkness to it. 

• Green River

  John Fogerty has said of the song, “The actual specific reference, Green River, I got from a soda pop-syrup label. You used to be able to go into a soda fountain, and they had these bottles of flavored syrup. My flavor was called Green River. It was green, lime flavored, and they would empty some out over some ice and pour some of that soda water on it, and you had yourself a Green River.”