The Rolling Stones: Paint It Black Meaning

Song Released: 1966

Paint It Black Lyrics

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
I see a line of cars and theyre all painted...

1. oracle

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   Oct 7th 2011 !⃝

   commissioner's interpretations are so good they are off the charts.
   
   I'll add that even the red door is a reference to Jesus
2. oracle

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   Aug 25th 2011 !⃝

   "If I look hard enough into the settin sun
   my love will laugh with me before the morning comes"
   
   Yes this is a reference to looking for Jesus
   who is referred to here as "my love"
3. oracle

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   Aug 25th 2011 !⃝

   Commissioner's interpretation of Paint it Black is worthy of a nobel peace prize.
   Interesting to note that the most valuable interpretation has been marked as "poor"..
   people just hate the truth....like a line from an eagles song
   "we all know that crap is king"
4. anonymous

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   Jul 27th 2011 !⃝

   Wikipedia says, "More literally, it is about using the visual trick of painting everything black in the mind's eye." Anybody know what that's about?
5. anonymous

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   Jul 12th 2011 !⃝

   You know i just have read another interpretation: According to what i read it´s true that the sing it´s about the girlfrriend´s funeral, but the girl´s "death" it´s not real it´s simbolic, what the song talks about it´s a relationship that ended, he is depressed because he broke up with his girlfriend and he feels that she died but she really didn´t, and the song was written by the time Mick Jagger broke uo with Chrissie Shrimpton so it can be truth.
6. humanzee

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   Jul 10th 2011 !⃝

   He's an unemployed painter, depressed because he's unemployed and probably has been for a long time, which , as is not uncommon, led to a somewhat permanently altered state of mind -- to the point where he actually was driven to a place of hopelessness that felt so unrelentingly gut-wrenching and seemed to be horribly eternal that he felt compelled to "complete the circle" so to speak and destroy the one remaining point of disruptive light in his life -- his one, true love.
   
   This completes his descent into a twisted darkness, which is what he was seeking, as he came to understand that only through a complete and total "Blackout" would he ever have any hope of returning to a condition of recovery & redemption.
   
   Returning to the matter of our poor, depressed narrator's unemployment. Clearly, his ongoing obsession with black pointed to the fact that black was the only color he would paint in -- no matter what the object or item, in his hands it was destined to become black - either flat, satin or glossy, but always black. His active customer-base quickly went from almost one to absolutely zero, where it remained until such time as our deranged narrator effected a full and lasting cure of his own devising, and the sun shone brightly upon his his little piss-ant world once again.
7. humanzee

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   Jul 10th 2011 !⃝

   He's an unemployed painter, depressed because he's unemployed and probably has been for a long time, which , as is not uncommon, led to a somewhat permanently altered state of mind -- to the point where he actually was driven to a place of hopelessness that felt so unrelentingly gut-wrenching and seemed to be horribly eternal that he felt compelled to "complete the circle" so to speak and destroy the one remaining point of disruptive light in his life -- his one, true love.
   
   This completes his descent into a twisted darkness, which is what he was seeking, as he came to understand that only through a complete and total "Blackout" would he ever have any hope of returning to a condition of recovery & redemption.
   
   Returning to the matter of our poor, depressed narrator's unemployment. Clearly, his ongoing obsession with black pointed to the fact that black was the only color he would paint in -- no matter what the object or item, in his hands it was destined to become black - either flat, satin or glossy, but always black. His active customer-base quickly went from almost one to absolutely zero, where it remained until such time as our deranged narrator effected a full and lasting cure of his own devising, and the sun shone brightly upon his his little piss-ant world once again.
8. anonymous

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   Jul 9th 2011 !⃝

   Can you believe? when i first saw the lyric i just thought it was about been depressed and how your whole was black when you were depressed, and now i got thousend of interpretations and possible meanings and all them can be true, i never thought about a dead girl, or about a psycho who wanted to kill or rape girls, and of course i never thought it had something to do with Jesus, i just though it was about been depressed.
9. skaizun

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   Jul 4th 2011 !⃝

   I disagree with one part of the #1 voted interpretation: ""i see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
   i have to turn my head until my darkness goes" doesn't mean that we WANTS to turn to see the colorful clothes to make his darkness go away. On the contrary, in keeping with the mood of the song, he needs to turn his head AWAY, so that he WON'T look, until he darkness goes. Otherwise, the rest of your interpretation doesn't work (i.e., he's depressed about a friend's death, so why would he look at a girl during this time; not all of us pick up chicks during funerals!). ;)
10. anonymous

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    May 7th 2011 !⃝

    One point I haven't seen mentioned is the fact that, in Chinese culture, red is considered "the" color for happy occasions, and in feng shui, red is frequently considered the best color to paint one's front door, to help encourage a happy home.
    Thus with "I see a red door and I want it painted black," we have an expression of the singer's grief; he doesn't believe he can ever be happy again; in fact, it almost seems as if he doesn't WANT to be happy again.
    Couple this with the lines: "I see a line of cars and they're all painted black; with flowers and my love both never to come back," it seems obvious that he's singing of a funeral procession, and that the whole song is a poignant expression of a man deeply grieving the death of his "love," perhaps, as revealed by "maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts; It's not easy facing up when you whole world is black" to the point of being suicidal, and ("I wanna see the sun, blotted out from the sky") wanting his world to end, since she is no longer in his world.
11. anonymous

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    Jan 6th 2011 !⃝

    He's raped and murdered someone and is feeling guilty about it. duh

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
12. anonymous

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    Jan 3rd 2011 !⃝

    My interpretation to this song is the narrator is singing about lost love and darkness, but most music like this has dual meanings...sometimes even a third...the actual underlying tone to this song is the narrator has experienced a bad trip...he wants everything painted black so to have a clear head from the illusionshe is witnessing....the funeral procession is one of the visions he is seeing...his death...it's hard to explain to someone who doesn't really know much about psychadelic music....the trip he was on turned bad and the other side wanted to keep him there....he odesn't want to see colors, no more red doors...portals to other worlds...paint every thing black....escape from the illusion.....fade away and not have to face the facts...escape from the truth he found while on the trip.....
13. lyricalone

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    May 15th 2010 !⃝

    Earlier songs versions from 66 and 67 the line is "I have to turn my head until my darkness GROWS" this makes sense . . . more than goes . . . He turns his head from the girls dressed in their summer clothes in a continuation of the rest of the songs premise, he does not want to leave the blackness, he turns from the possibility of joy back to the blackness, in his heart, his soul, his spirit, allowing it to grow, the pain is his comfort and refuge. Why Mick ever changed was probabally a simple error and it then became how he remembered it from versions 68 and forward.
14. z4gagnon

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    Mar 30th 2010 !⃝

    This song is clearly a direct reference to suppressed sexual aggression, and based on the singer being a male, most likely male sexual aggression. The singer/narrator - for whatever the reason may be - consistently refers to his or her unwillingness to repress and deny sexual desires on a relatively consistent - and possibly everyday - basis.
    
    The consistent desire to want to paint everything black is obviously the envious result of forced sexual repression from either A) society deeming sexual desires - especially during the era in which this song was written - inappropriate and unacceptable or B) the singer's reaction to an unfulfilled sexual appetite and therefore, the singer reacts in a typical, envious manner by wanting to inflict the same feelings of forced repression upon others whom he deems unaffected by such emotions. Those who don't suffer are colors and the suffering which the singer wishes to impose is black paint. ''I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes; I have to turn my head until my darkness goes'' serves as an introduction and build-up to the core theme of the song; the singer - for an unnamed reason - feels compelled to repress and hide his promiscuous ambitions.
    
    The following lines draw a parallel between the color black and the death of the singer's love as he apparently - for the same unannounced reason - has chosen to feed his sexual appetite over the accepted norm and/or opposing appetite for true love and/or faithfulness.
    
    The fact that the repressed desire is unique to the singer is strengthened within the line ''I could not forsee this thing happening to you'', as he or she can see no examples of others - especially the opposite sex - enduring any type of similar strife. The compulsion to want to look ''hard enough into the setting sun'' is a reference to the singer's only solution to terminate his or her constant repression by removing his or her sight and thus, not having to constantly observe things which ignite a sexual appetite. Clearly, visual observation is the strongest emotion experienced by the singer; again strengthening the claim that he has chosen sex over love and faithfulness, themes for which colors serve as the single metaphor throughout the song. The singer's sea will ''no more....turn a deeper blue''; therefore the bright colors of what he is consciously rejecting will never be altered enough to fulfill both a desire for sexual conquests and his or her lesser desire for love; the singer must choose one and completely extinguish the other.
    
    Clearly, the singer does not want to ''face the facts'', but does so in the following lines when he or she ''looks inside'' and sees that his or her heart ''is black'' and would rather ''fade away'' into ignorance (setting sun) instead of confronting the fact that both appetites - for whatever unknown reason - cannot be fed simultaneously.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
15. anonymous

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    Feb 7th 2010 !⃝

    I think this song is bout a man who is trying to resist prostitution. "I see a red door and I want to paint it black." Red doors are the symbols of a whorehouse or a brothel especially in Europe and the United States. Jagger possibly wanted to get rid of prostitution and the crime of sex trafficking because he wanted to paint the "red door" black."I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes/ I quickly turn my head until the darkness goes". In the 70's, showing skin and bikinis were still a new thing. It's possible that in this song he was trying to show how the world has changed and that it's turning everything black. This is my opinion of the song.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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