How a road manager’s catchphrase influenced a classic Pink Floyd song
Following Syd Barrett’s departure in 1968, Pink Floyd took a while to find their feet. It wasn’t until 1971’s Meddle that the group stumbled upon the sound that ultimately characterised their most successful run of albums. Meddle was buoyed significantly by the 23-minute epic ‘Echoes’, a compositional marvel that foreshadowed the success of The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973.
Based on a thematic concept conjured by Roger Waters, The Dark Side of the Moon is decidedly moody and impressively philosophical for a man in his late 20s. As an exploration of man’s greatest existential struggles, the album contains conceptual landmarks such as ‘Time’ and ‘Money’, accentuated by reprised clock ticks, heartbeats and clinking cash registers.
At the beginning of the album, the brief instrumental track ‘Speak To Me’ introduces the conceptual motifs before bleeding seamlessly into ‘Breathe (In the Air)’. Alongside recurring motifs and continuous composition on each side, The Dark Side of the Moon is tightly bound by an instrumental reprise of ‘Breathe (In the Air)’ on side two.
Originally titled ‘Breathe (2nd reprise)’, ‘Any Colour You Like’ is commonly linked to Henry Ford’s famous quote in relation to his Model T car, “You can have it any colour you like… as long as it’s black!” However, this assertion was discredited in Vernon Fitch’s Pink Floyd Encyclopedia, where the title is attributed to a catchphrase used by Pink Floyd’s road manager, Chris Adamson. When asked to grab a guitar, he’d say, “Any colour you like, they’re all blue.”
It appears that Adamson’s use of the phrase was just a reminder to Waters, who remembered when he first heard the expression in an interview with Phil Rose. “In Cambridge, where I lived, people would come from London in a van – a truck – open the back and stand on the tailboard of the truck, and the truck’s full of stuff that they’re trying to sell,” he said.
Waters continued to explain that these Del Trotter types had the sharp tongue of an auctioneer and comical catchphrases to boot. “If they had sets of china, and they were all the same colour, they would say, ‘You can ‘ave ’em, ten bob to you, love. Any colour you like, they’re all blue.'”
The bassist and songwriter explained how this sense of misdirection fits in with the album’s existential and political stance. “So, metaphorically, ‘Any Colour You Like’ is interesting, in that sense, because it denotes offering a choice where there is none. And it’s also interesting that in the phrase, ‘Any colour you like, they’re all blue,’ I don’t know why, but in my mind, it’s always ‘they’re all blue’, which, if you think about it, relates very much to the light and dark, sun and moon, good and evil. You make your choice, but it’s always blue.”
Listen to Pink Floyd’s ‘Any Colour You Like’ below.
