Colour Me In meaning?

[borneoman]

always thought that Colour Me In meant "paint me" like in the colouring books for children, not in a literal but metaphorical meaning as in love me or something

but then a friend told me it could also mean something different, like "count me in", and funnily I was watching OITNB and this girl just said "Colour me surprised" as is "call me surprised", so I thought "come let me love you and colour me in" could mean something like come back and then consider me "in" as in "I´ll stick around/I´m up for it"

what do you guys reckon?

[mattministrator]

Interesting thought. I also read it metaphorically up until now and actually prefer that reading. Chances are, though, that Damien was fully aware of a possible ambiguity and welcomed it.

[borneoman]

so can mean both?
(English is not my 1st language)

[InspirationDestination]

He has said it's not meant as a love song, even though I thought it was when I first heard it. Like I've messed love up, but if YOU let me love you, you could add vibrancy and color to me. But I think he said it's about how you want to love someone and they just want to make you into what they want.

[Hannah25]

English is my first language, but I'd never considered 'count me in' as a possible meaning.

Obviously I have no idea what the intended meaning was, and it's already been pointed out that ambiguity is possibly intentional, but the OITNB meaning doesn't sound right to me in this context. It feels like quite a jokey, very American way to read it. It just doesn't seem to fit with the song for me.

[damienmeetseuclid]

I have watched some of his intros and he still doesn't literally spell it out for you on what the song means. However, it is not necessarily a love song (it is, but it isn't). He says its impossible to love anything out there if you hate whats inside of you. It is a conversation with all of his personalities/voices (good and bad) and learning how to be kind with yourself.

In another video, he says how he has noticed that the more guilty he felt about something the more he continued to do that something. This fits with the line "Well I tried to repress it and I carried its crown".

He continues. It is about seeing if you can step out of the self-hatred and putting that hatred onto someone else and seeing if you can just love someone else.

Again, I'm not sure how some of these ideas connect with specific lines of the song.

[glo32]

When he says that his new songs are not "love songs" he's not saying they're not about "love", but that they're not from a "love" point of view. He thinks that he's unable to really love, so his songs are not "love songs".

But this song is undoubtedly about love, I think.

Analysing the lyrics:

i tried to repress it
then i carried its crown
i reached out to undress it
but love let me down

this is where he tells us he's talking about love. He tried to repress love, then carried its crown, but in the end love let him down. Probably not his lover, but his "idea of love".

so i tried to erase it
but the ink bled right through
almost drove myself crazy
when these words led to you

So he tried to erase this idea of love, or even bury the love for a specific person, but he found this love was everywhere and he couldn't really erase it (as the "ink" is everywhere) so he kind of got ****ed up realizing that every song he writes is about that specific lover.

and all these useless dreams
of living alone
like a dogless bone…
this is more obscure I think, but it could be that he used to dream of being alone (when he was with her) and now all those dreams turned out to be useless and he's like a dogless bone.
Or it could also be that pursuing his useless dreams led him to be alone and become a dogless bone (I think this is it)

The second verse is clearer if you imagine *that* specific lover: a lover to "cover up", "it was all part of the show" and the "never enough" bit that he then reprises in Long Long Way. He actually knew that he'd regret this love, but he couldn't imagine that he would end up like this ( = a dogless bone).

I get the "colour me in" part with the metaphorical meaning of "teach me how to love". If we think of Lisa being the "you" in this song, we can actually think of some other lyrics that refer to Lisa as the "colourful one" in the relationship (I'm thinking of Lisa's "A Sail" but there is some other song that references it too, I think?)
It's like he feels "black and white" without her, and needs her to bring some colour inside him.
I don't really think it has a "count me in" meaning. But yes, it could also be that Damien wanted to be ambiguous...

Another hint that he's talking about Lisa, anyway, is the last part:

so come let me love you
come let me take this through the end
of all these useless dreams of living
in all these useless dreams…
of all these useless dreams of living
in all these old noes…

he's living in all her old "noes" and he's begging her to stop saying "no", let him love her, let him end these useless dreams, etc...

I think he probably says that this is not a love song because I feels this "begging" isn't really love.
And that's why he says that the only "love song" on the album is I Don't Want To Change You - the only song where he doesn't feel any nostalgia, any regret, doesn't ask her to forgive him or anything. Change You delivers a different message ("i don't want to change you and i don't want to change your mind, if you need me i'm here, but if you don't, I wish you a happy life") which is probably what Damien thinks love is really about.

But the thing he says, that in most of the songs on the album he's talking about/to himself - that's absolute bull**it to me the only song that really does is probably The Box.
All the others are songs about love - lost love, regretting love, ****ed up love, re-elaborating love, etc...

[borneoman]

for me the part about the "all these dreams of being alone..." is a bit like the wild and free part of The Box. it´s like saying he never thought he wanted a permanent partner, he cannot 100% commitment to one single person...

also think the meaning is like "paint me", rather than the OITNB meaning

[eva_arg]

Originally Posted by borneoman

for me the part about the "all these dreams of being alone..." is a bit like the wild and free part of The Box. it´s like saying he never thought he wanted a permanent partner, he cannot 100% commitment to one single person...

also think the meaning is like "paint me", rather than the OITNB meaning

****sorry, off topic***

OITNB's new season was a bit meh, don't you think?

[borneoman]

Only watched 3 epis
and yep
Kinda meh
Plus looks like the best character leaves
At the end of epi 3

[InspirationDestination]

Haven't watched OITNB's new season yet, but hope to binge this weekend! There is so much hype, but I don't like it as much as I thought I would.

Marti, I agree the dream of living alone being like wild and free.

Glo, I've heard him offer a few different perspectives on songs and also doubt when he says they are not about "another person." And, I agree that they are about Love but like lost love, begging, unrequited love, etc. I still think the "color me in" is meant as a "F*** it, Color me into anything you want me to be for you."

I think It Takes a Lot.... is very much about himself, in addition to Box. It is his deepest self-examination.

He has been talking about unconditional love at concerts, too and how that is his goal. Through meditation and in Buddhism (almost all religions, I think) that is always meant to be the goal- Unconditional love of self, humanity, as well as those you care about. At the Beacon or Philly, he said that he was able to love someone unconditionally, after they weren't in his life anymore.

Unconditional Love is different than unconditional acceptance. Wanting to change someone does not necessarily equal a lack of unconditional love. You can love someone unconditionally, but that does not mean that you can accept their cruelty to you or others, lies, or their self-destructive behaviors (that is enabling). Creating distance and space for self-preservation is a legitimate way to love, even if some may see that as conditional love. In my opinion...

[Claude]

Just a beautiful video with Colour Me In,
with New Amsterdam extracts.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4G47C19DwY

[mattministrator]

This remains one of my favourite songs. Thank you for making me revisit it after quite some time! 🙂

[Claude]

You're welcome Mattministrator !


In fact i was looking for an episode of New Amsterdam,
with Colour me in inside.
Finally i found it !
At 1:20 the song is begining.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUoumSXWaj0