Blue walks in and establishes authority

Black doesn’t care

Brown is down

Green is keen

Pink is perky

Yellow relaxed

Red erupts in a volcanic passion and slaughters the innocent

TERRY HOLIDAY

The links between colour and emotion are the source of a number of disciplines and approach to therapies that calm the spirit and help troubled souls. It is unsurprising, then, that Terry’s rendering of colours should have some similarities with Mr Jimi Hendrix’ Bold as Love. We provide those lyrics here for your comparison.

We note that Terry’s piece is far more succinct, pithy and not at all derivative. It delivers a post-modern simplicity of naming the connections between colour and emotion and breaking expectations with a dramatic action that offsets the satire of the opening line.

By contrast, Hendrix was writing at the height of the LSD inspired emergence of light shows as an integral part of pop performance – the term rock had not emerged then, and Hendrix toured with Humperdink and other middle of the road performers – as part of a pop spectacular.

Bold as Love

Jimi Hendrix

Anger, he smiles,
Towering in shiny metallic purple armour
Queen Jealousy, envy waits behind him
Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground

Blue are the life-giving waters taken for granted,
They quietly understand
Once happy turquoise armies lay opposite ready,
But wonder why the fight is on

But they’re all bold as love, yeah, they’re all bold as love
Yeah, they’re all bold as love
Just ask the axis

My red is so confident that he flashes trophies of war,
And ribbons of euphoria
Orange is young, full of daring,
But very unsteady for the first go round

My yellow in this case is not so mellow
In fact I’m trying to say it’s frightened like me
And all these emotions of mine keep holding me from, eh,
Giving my life to a rainbow like you
But, I’m bold as love, yeah, I’m bold as love