Colorful Song

"It was red and yellow and green and brown
And scarlet and black and ochre and peach
And ruby and olive and violet and fawn
And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve
And cream and crimson and silver and rose
And azure and lemon and russet and grey
And purple and white and pink and orange
And red and yellow and green and brown and blue!"

— Company, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: "Joseph's Coat"

A song which names many different colors.

This often serves as a cheap excuse for Mood Lighting: for instance, when the singer sings that he's blue, he is surrounded by a blue spotlight or camera filter. Compare Song of Many Emotions, which is this but with emotions instead. Often overlaps with List Song.

---

Examples:

Fan Works

• In Pretty Cure: Magic of the Rainbow, the Rainbow Fairies team up with the Pretty Cure to sing a song that summons a rainbow at the end of the chapter, which describes the seven colours and pairs up a fairy with a Cure who has the same theme colour; Ruby and Towa represent red, Amber and Tsubasa represent orange, Saffron and Ako represent yellow, Fern and Komachi represent green, Sky and Hime represent blue, Izzy and Yuri represent indigo, and Heather and Ruru represent violet. At the end, Hikaru and Melodie randomly appear to give an extra shout out to pink.

Films — Live-Action

• South Pacific: While the songs themselves don't mention colors in any extreme way ("Nothing Like a Dame" does have the line "We feel restless, we feel blue", but that's about it), the film makes the rather odd decision to gel the camera during the musical numbers. When the sky suddenly turns pink, you know there's a song coming up.

Music

• Petula Clark: "Color My World" cites multiple colors in the environment: yellow sunshine, green grass, blue sky, as a metaphor for how her lover brightens up her world.
• Donovan: "Colours"
  Yellow is the color of my true love's hair
  In the morning, when we rise
  In the morning, when we rise
  That's the time, that's the time
  I love the best

  Blue is the color of the sky....

  Green's the color of the sparkling corn...
• Enya: The chorus to "White is in the Winter Night" describes the various colors of Christmas night — green in the mistletoe, red in the holly, silver in the stars, gold in the candlelight, crimson in fire embers, and white in the night itself.

• Dolly Parton: "Coat of Many Colors", about a coat made out of colorful rags that Dolly's mother gave to her.

• The Rolling Stones: Inversion with "Paint it Black". Only a handful of other colors are mentioned, namely red, green and blue, and the singer wants everything to become black as he mourns the passing of his lover.

• The Stupendium: "Room For Improvement" has a verse made entirely of paint colors.
  We got Eggshell, Beige
  Ecru, Sage
  Hessian and Sesame and Peppermint Rage
  Indigo Dingo, Elephant Plague
  Hot Dog Embargo and Lemon Rampage
  Baby Blue
  Navy Blue
  Gravy Blue
  Maybe Blue
  Grape and Rhubarbecue
  Caribou Cabin Crew
  Third Degree Verdigris
  Turtle Infirmary
  Phlurple
  And Curdle
  And Terminal Burgundy
  And — oh...white? Y-you'd prefer white?
  Okay, whatever, white's fine too...
  I'm not hurt or anything...just a bit emulsional...
• Taylor Swift:
  • "Red" describes her many feelings as colors.
  Losing him was blue like I'd never known
  Missing him was dark grey all alone
  Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met
  But loving him was red
  • "Maroon" later describes how her feelings darkened since "Red", expressed through shades of dark red.
  The burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed your wine into me
  And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was
  The mark you saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephones
  The lips I used to call home, so scarlet, it was maroon

• Underworld (Band): The outro to "Juanita: Kiteless: To Dream of Love" is a recording of singer Karl Hyde (sped up to make his voice high-pitched) as he lists the colors of cars passing by over and over until the track fades out.
• Numerous children's songs will be this.
  Red and yellow and pink and green
  Purple and orange and blue
  I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow
  Sing a rainbow too.

  Jesus loves the little children
  All the little children of the world
  Red and yellow, black and white
  They are precious in his sight
  Jesus loves the little children of the world
• Verse three of The Beatles' "All Together Now":
  Black, white, green, red
  Can I take my friend to bed?
  Pink, brown, yellow, orange and blue
  I love you

Theatre

• Barnum: "The Colors of My Life", sung by the titular character and then as a Dark Reprise by his wife, who prefers more mundane colors.

• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: "Coat of Many Colors" describes the many colors of Joseph's coat ^note Red, yellow, green, brown, scarlet, black, ochre, peach, ruby, olive, violet, fawn, lilac, gold, chocolate, mauve, cream, crimson, silver, rose, azure, lemon, russet, grey, purple, white, pink, orange, and blue.
• Les Misérables: "Red and Black", about how these two colors have different meanings for Enjolras and Marius.
• Ordinary Days: "Rooftop Duet/Falling" is partly about all the colors that can be seen in the hundreds of flyers that Warren made.

Video Games

• Colors from DanceDanceRevolution and Beat Mania IIDX While the chorus and the bridge focus primarily on blue, the verse mentions red, orange, green and yellow.
  Red is with a twist
  Orange is the fire
  Green of tourmaline
  Mellow yellow, hello, hello.
• The Idolmaster: "Colorful Days", complete with Color-Coded for Your Convenience.

Western Animation

• Blue's Clues has the "Colors, Colors, Everywhere" song from the episode "Colors Everywhere!" In it, Joe sings about various colors, including how colors can be mixed and mixed again to make new colors, including ones he's never seen before, i.e. "Chartreuse, a color I had not seen. Looks to me like a yellowish-green. Mix blue and yellow and they're suddenly green. Then blue and green make aquarmine." This song was later redone for the remake version of the episode in Blue's Clues & You!.
• Bubble Guppies has the song "A Color Just Right" from "The Crayon Prix!", as Molly sings about the various colors and what they are used for. The same episode also has "What Colors Mean", a dancing song led by Goby about the meaning of colors such as green for go and red for stop.

• Darkwing Duck: In the pilot, Gosalyn sings a lullabye her grandfather taught her to Darkwing since he doesn't know any, which is mostly singing random colors that exist in the rainbow in a seemingly random and redundant order. That is until Darkwing notices that her grandfather's Zero Point interface cannon has a color coded keyboard.
• Dora the Explorer gives us the song "De Colores" from "The Shy Rainbow".

• Nick Jr. Sings had the "Colors" song, which was released on the album Dance and Sing with Nick Jr. It features a young girl singing about the various colors - "Yellow sunshine, turquoise sea, purple mountains' majesty."
• Walt Disney Presents: "The Green with Envy Blues" and "The Spectrum Song" from Disney's The Wonderful World of Color. The version of the Spectrum Song featured on Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color features an additional bit:
  Ludwig Von Drake: Now, alright, we know that everybody don't have television sets with color, so... we're gonna do a version for them, we don't want you to feel left out of it. Here's for you...
  Black black gray white gray gray gray white white white gray gray white, black.
  Black black gray white gray gray gray white white gray gray gray black, black.
  Alright, now you're happy? You don't feel left out? Now I wanna get back to my song.

---