Rolling Stones

Rolling Stones – Paint It, Black

(1966 – Included in the US edition of the album "Aftermath", Abikco, 1966)

The glow of fires in the Vietnam night, the marines marching through the rubble, singing the "Mickey Mouse Club" theme in chorus, while Joker's narrating voice comments: "I am in a world of shit, yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid." Darkness. And those disorienting sitar chords announcing the closing credits, which roll in black and white over Mick Jagger's voice. Many first came to know "Paint It, Black" that way, in that finale of chilling resignation from "Full Metal Jacket", yet another masterpiece from master Kubrick, dated 1987. And that pairing proved so powerful that the single released by the Rolling Stones more than twenty years earlier ended up becoming one of the emblematic songs about the Vietnam War, also soundtracking countless TV programs (and even video games) on the subject. And yet, there are no apparent ties to the conflict that tore apart the '60s generation. Except, perhaps, in its Eastern-tinged sound and in its exploration of that heart of darkness which, from Conrad through to "Apocalypse Now", inevitably ends up being associated with the horrors of war and colonialism. But none of that was on the minds of the young Stones, who in the spring of 1966 were focused on breaking free from the cover-plus-B-sides formula, in order to finally put together an album made up entirely of their own songs. "Paint It, Black" is one of those songs. Credited to the Jagger/Richards partnership, it was actually a collective creation of the whole band, as Bill Wyman would later recall. Particularly decisive was the contribution of Brian Jones, who helped shape the riff and, as a self-taught player, performed that unforgettable sitar part, giving us perhaps the most effective use of the Indian instrument in a rock song. But chance, as is so often the case with masterpieces, played an equally decisive role. That is, if we can even speak of chance when dealing with a band as on fire as the Stones were at the time, capable of turning even the most off-the-cuff improvisation into gold.

The fact is, the embryo of "Paint It, Black" was a decidedly more relaxed and conventional funk-soul number. It took a bit of good old messing around to make it explode. Wyman gets the ball rolling, improvising on the organ a parody of their co-manager Eric Easton, who as a young man had worked as an organist in a small cinema. It could have ended right there. But it didn't, because the secret of a true band is chemistry. So the others all follow suit. Charlie Watts unleashes a double-time drum pattern that echoes Middle Eastern dances. It's the perfect rhythmic counterpoint to Jagger's vocal, an ode to death and despair in the form of a requiem for a departed lover. Then that Native American-style beat morphs into an irresistible hard-rock rhythm for the chorus: a damn Stones-style hook, one of those that takes your breath away through the sheer innate power of its simplicity. And then there's that sitar, discovered by the band during a trip to Fiji. In Jones's hands, the mystical instrument par excellence turns dark, damned, unsettling. It weaves relentlessly, tearing at the fabric of the song with twangs, injecting it with a clear flicker of madness, sharpened by a murkily nihilistic lyric: “I see a red door and I want it painted black/ No colors anymore I want them to turn black/ I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes/ I have to turn my head until my darkness goes” (complete with a quotation from Joyce's Ulysses in that last line). The red door is the protagonist's heart, which fades into darkness, unable to accept the loss of his beloved ("Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts"), still picturing her among the girls in summer clothes, before his gaze falls on the funeral procession of black cars and the flowers for the burial ("I see a line of cars and they're all painted black/ With flowers and my love, both never to come back").

The atmosphere turns claustrophobic, the rhythm obsessive (the bass would later be added by Wyman via overdubbing, using the bass pedals of a Hammond B3 organ). It's an unstoppable crescendo by this point, with Jack Nitzsche's piano lending a hand, those decidedly unsettling closed-mouth backing vocals, and Jagger letting his rage explode once again, invoking a total and definitive eclipse: "I want to see the sun blotted out from the sky". Rarely in the history of rock had anyone plunged into such depths of despair. But for a band that, a couple of years later, would flirt directly with His Satanic Majesty ("Sympathy For The Devil", 1968), that pitch-black abyss was, after all, only the beginning of a long descent into hell.

Youthful unease had found its new anthem, complete with that exotic touch so fashionable at the time, yet also capable of freeing the Stones from the dogmas of blues-rock. The heart of darkness became "a necessary human condition to be passively accepted, but also an active choice of the will (to power?), a free stance taken against the bourgeois respectability of adults" – as Cristian Degano suggests in his review of "Aftermath", the album from which "Paint It, Black" would be lifted as the first single, though only in the American edition, where it replaced the original "Mother's Little Helper", deemed unwelcome for its drug allusions. More pragmatically, the British kept that other gem in the tracklist, releasing "Paint It, Black" instead as a standalone 45. But the song's success would be renewed over the years, not least thanks to the imposing string of cover versions, the most notable of which we list in the column alongside.

There's also a curious story behind that comma, which ended up wedged between the words "It" and "Black": it was inserted (by mistake?) by the record label at the printing stage. Richards was not pleased with the addition, fearing possible racist implications: "Paint it, black", after all, could sound rather sinister, especially in those years of heightened racial tension. And so, in later pressings, the comma was removed.

The fact remains that, despite the commas and the record label's byzantine strategies, "Paint, It Black" turned out to be exactly what Melody Maker had prophesied on the day of its release: "A glorious Indian raga-riot that will send the Stones back to number one on the charts". Mission accomplished, on both sides of the Atlantic (US, Canada, UK, and even the Netherlands).

Sometimes, even music magazines get it right.

I see a red door and I want it painted black

No colors anymore, I want them to turn black

I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes

I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black

With flowers and my love, both never to come back

I see people turn their heads and quickly look away

Like a newborn baby it just happens everyday

I look inside myself and see my heart is black

I see my red door and I must have it painted black

Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts

It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue

I could not foresee this thing happening to you

If I look hard enough into the setting sun

My love will laugh with me before the morning comes

I see a red door and I want it painted black

No colors anymore I want them to turn black

I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes

I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I want to see it painted black, black as night, black as coal

Don’t want to see the sun, blotted out form the sky

I want to see it painted, painted, painted, painted black, yeah

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03/03/2026