Paint it Black by The Rolling Stones

Rocking the music world in 1966, The Rolling Stones’ hit single Paint it Black, from their fourth album Aftermath, reached the top of the charts in both the United States and United Kingdom. The song attempts to give the listener a glimpse into a lover’s agony as he deals with his lover’s untimely death. To him, his life is no longer worth living because happiness is no longer complete with out his lover. Unable to fill the void, he becomes dedicated to stick himself into a deep depression in hopes to forget his pain.

Color becomes a reoccurring motif throughout the piece as the speaker makes it clear that he wants to paint everything black. He repeats the lines, “I see a red door and I want it painted black/ No colors anymore I want them to turn black,” to enforce the idea that everything lively and vivacious in his life, symbolized as the color red, needs to be covered up and wiped away. More color is introduced with the verse, “No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue/ I could not foresee this thing happening to you.” Although the man accepts his lover’s death, her death has cause him to revolt against anything and everything that has made him happy; thus, it is important to note that colors to him are now repulsion. The intensity of his needs are realized at the closing stanza, “I wanna see it tainted, tainted black/ Black as night, black as coal/ I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky/ I wanna see it tainted, tainted, tainted, tainted black.” With the use of smiles and repetition of words, the speaker begins to appear wrapped up in his misery without any sense of reality to hold on to any longer.

To set the scene, the speaker illustrates a funeral setting which creates a daunting and morose mood. Describing the scene as if he was at a distance, the speaker voices, “I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black/ With flowers and my love both never to come back.” With a sense of judgment towards the fickleness of human nature, the speaker then continues more profoundly, “I see people turn their heads and quickly look away/ Like a new born baby it just happens everyday.” Both a simile and an understatement, the last statement compares both death and birth and emphasizes the extent of the speaker’s grief without stating it outright. It is through the use of personal pronouns that this song begins to claim new meaning and seriousness to the speaker’s depression. The song begins with the verse, “I see a red door and I want to paint it black,” which exposes the speaker’s wishes to forget, yet with the statement later, “I look inside myself and see my heart is black/ I see my red door and must have painted it black,” he suggests that he had found a solution to his dilemma. When faced with that much despair, such a solution would suggest thoughts about suicide especially when the next two verses express, “Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts/ It’s not easy facin’ up when your whole world is black.” With the death of his lover, the speaker’s world collapsed bringing him to the brink of madness because he can not deal with his heartbreak.

Though the song offers a soulful account of a grieving lover’s thoughts, Paint it Black only attempts to scratch into such emotions. Not much action occurs throughout the song, yet the nature and almost insanity of a man in absolute despair proves to create an immaculate piece of music. Moving and heartbreaking, the Rolling Stones’ Paint it Black remains deep and intuitive to audiences everywhere.