The Rolling Stones: Paint It Black Meaning
Song Released: 1966
Paint It Black Lyrics
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...
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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?
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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.
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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. -
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. -
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.
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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!). ;) -
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. -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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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.....
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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.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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