Green Is the Colour

One other thing. If you have only heard the version on the More soundtrack, you are missing out. There is the one above, and another.I think it is a BBC recording. WAY BETTER than the album version.

So if anybody has heard of "synesthesia" then they'd totally get the concept of the perception going on here. The fact that colors are being interpreted with words and sounds etc. like a type of hallucination, through our senses... it's quite unique if you ask me. And anyways the mysterious art of this song is what captures peoples attention...

So just thinking out of the ordinary in perception but about the beauty of something important to one, is the principle of this song. It's so amazing. It's great how it's like a cognition... and the senses are mixing together. It's pretty sweet, how this happens. Metaphor and Hallucination... is just a great way of writing music and performing it.

The song is about an Island, more directly, Ibiza. Rogers said he wrote this song when they were in Ibiza recording for la valle. The song makes much more sense when it's about an island. However, it could have a double meaning and be about a girl. though i highly doubt it because water's rarely ever wrote love songs towards girls. I could go deeper but here's a quick explanation. Blue canopy = sky. He's gotta shade his eyes just to see the island. the dress is the bright white sand. Shadow of a wave is the surrounding crashing waters. Hazy visions are the mirage spectical you acheive staring across sand. The sun in her eyes is just the reflection of the sun. Moonshine made her cry is the fact the the moon brings in the tide. Ibiza is a highly forested island in the urban area, so green is her colour. The last two lines are very typical of waters's writing style. Make a huge leap to metaphysical metaphor at the end, so he could say it had artistic meaning. Oh roger. What will we do with you... oh yea. we'll go to your wall tour coming up.

This is without a doubt the most gorgeous song I have ever heard. David Gilmour's vocals and the music go hand in hand. It's beautiful.

This song is one of my favorites. I just saw david gilmour in hollywood a couple weeks ago. Gosh his voice is still so amazing. I wished he would have played this but it was still the best thing i have ever seen/heard. I dont know what this song means, nd that is what i love about it, its mysterious. I must agree with the post above that the line "envy is the bond between the hopeful and the damned" is genius. So simple, so beautiful. Want to see them play this in a studio? Its my favorite footage of the Floyd. I couldnt believe this when i found it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4164425144023949988&q=pink+floyd

Beautiful song. I love the KQED version!

The first time that i listened to this song i founded extremely sad, the organ sounds brought memories from a past that i hadn´t lived, yeah, it sounds weird, but it was a very vague melancholy, and i didn´t know about what . Has anyone else felt something like that? And no, i wasn´t /am not stoned...

On the other hand, maybe syd has alot to with this.. maybe he dealt with "synesthesia" either you have it out of the blue, genetically or from a hallocinogen... and this song just was a defect of that condition... And anyways... This song, wow the meanings that are put in there...

In short other words: "shade my eyes and i can see you" means that her inner self isn't the person he wanst her to be in his eyes, but in reality shes perfect to him because he "shdes his eyes".this girl out there that's incredibly adored and she can't stay off his mind and metaphor is used for all these meanings, and then when you see so much in someone and theres so much romance... jealousy hits, she's not what she seems, like things are great sunlight lit her eyes, but moonshine made her cry every time basically then when things change and things aren't her way, she hits rock bottem... before you know it... your mind is full of false impression and theres such a strong feeling between unifying hope and judgment for the situation going on in the song.

Riffing just a bit on the great last line of the song.... and some other thoughts...

What is envy? Envy is when you want something you don't have (as opposed to 'jealousy' which is fearing the loss of what you have).

A kinder and less severe way of describing "envy" is to say that one is "hopeful".

However, envy is also one of the seven sins. So, if you're "envious", you're a sinner... you are "damned".

So, the lyric is suggesting a connection between being "hopeful" for something (a relationship with this girl?) and being damned for it (wanting it a little too much?). Its the one thing the "hopeful" and the "damned" have in common. Where is the line between "hopeful" and "damned" if "envy" is a sin?

This song has lots of colors as well. Blue. White. Green. And I think, this is part of the poetry of the song and goes to my next point.

Obviously, the whole song is the guy's infatuation with this girl... who for all intents and purposes, is being compared to the sun itself. This (and a number of other songs on the "More" soundtrack) are actually subtlety referring to the "sun" and the Icarus myth... getting wings, but flying so high to the sun (the girl) and getting burned...

Note the song "Cymbaline" on the album is also referring to the "sun". "Cymbeline" means "sun lord" and is of course, more popularly known from Shakespeare.

But back to this song. Blue is the sky where the sun is. White is the light coming from the sun. The sun is something you want... you want to touch... "green with envy". But even more so, blue of the sky with the yellow of the sun... is... GREEN!! Green is the color of her kind.

This song is pure magic, particularly the live versions.

We can certainly take Roger’s word that this is about Ibiza…and that is most likely the true meaning, but MY interpretation has always been different.

I’ve always taken this song to be a continuation of the “pastoral psychedelia” the band played when Syd was with them. “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” album title was taken directly from a chapter in “The Wind in the Willows”, a favorite book of Syd’s…in that chapter we encounter the wood nymph Pan, who plays a tin flute (an instrument present in the studio recording of this song).

Anyway, I’ve always thought “Green is the colour of her kind” was a reference to the ‘Green Man’ or ‘Green Men” of Pagan folklore. Listening to the song I imagine the author is documenting an encounter with a wood nymph in the forest, perhaps from a distance. The sunlight temporarily blinds him, she is appearing and disappearing between light and shadow. She shines with a magical radiance. Maybe he sees her for only a few seconds and she’s gone….