The Definition of Colorshow

I have almost the entire Avett Brothers discography on my iPod. There are a couple EPs and live albums I'm missing, I think. Ones that were self-produced and are now out of print and super hard to find. When it is really cold outside (which has been seldom this winter so far), I like to put them on shuffle; they make for good wintertime music. Though, they make for good anytime music, really. I know most of their songs, but since their discography is several hundred songs, there are still a few I've never heard. Occasionally one of those songs comes up and takes me by surprise. “Colorshow” was one of those songs. It is off the album Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions, released in 2006. It was the start of the Avetts getting a little... “heavier”. Drums became a regular addition and the boys plugged in their guitars. The Avetts recorded the album in about ten days; they didn't use a traditional studio, but rather recorded the album in a rented house in Robbinsville, North Carolina. I think it's awesome when bands record in weird places like that. Sufjan Stevens used to record in an old church until his mic fell over and picked up some creepy voices. Or at least that's what he once told Rolling Stone.

When “Colorshow” started playing I was a bit perplexed. It was unlike any other Avett Brothers song I had heard. It was almost angry in tone, which the Avett Brothers never are, and features screaming from Scott and Seth I could only compare to that of Lennon and McCartney in the later years of The Beatles. In its most basis sense, the song is about being yourself: “Be loud, let your color show/Try to keep the madness low/If they hear and it's wrong/And they come with torches on”. The first verse, and really just the first line, is awesome. Be loud, let your color show. That's an anthem, a mantra, words to live by. That's why I named this blog after it. That's what this blog is about. It's about being yourself and following your dreams. It's about letting your color show.

Be loud let your colors show
Try to keep the madness low
If they hear and it's wrong
And they come with torches on
Yeah come on

Be loud let your colors show
Try to keep the madness low
I tell them no with my hands
Make them understand the plan of it
Bright and gone

And I'm done forever
It's you and me forever
Cause I'm done forever
It's you and me forever

Be loud let the others know
First a whisper then it grows
I tell them go with my hands
Make them understand the last of it
Yeah come on, pain and all

Leave out pack your things and go
Leave the baby makers home
There's a time (now) and a place (now)
Someone built to take the race
When it calls you go head down

Head down don't you make a sound
Keep your plans all to yourself
They'll come true they follow you
They're what you're obligated to
Don't you listen to nobody else

And I'm done forever
It's you and me forever
Cause I'm done forever
See it's you and me forever