Performer: "Blue Ain't Your Color" is currently at #1 on the Hot Country Songs chart, and #25 on the Hot 100. Keith Urban has had 15 songs at #1 on the Hot Country Songs chart throughout his career.
Writers: Steven Lee Olsen, Hillary Lindsey, Clint Lagerberg
Title: A phrase that communicates not only the main idea of the song, but also the situation and the characters involved.
BPM: 55
Length: 3:50
Structure: Verse / Chorus / Verse / Chorus / Guitar Solo / Chorus
Points of Interest:
1) Despite being a song that has nothing to do with politics, and despite being a worthy song for #1 on the Hot Country Charts, I can't help but to wonder if the title of this song alone can account for some of its popularity throughout the red states during election season.
2) The title centers around the color blue, and so the lyrics are heavy with words about the sense of sight: see, staring, watching, look, eyes. This is one of the subtle ways that good songwriters make a song cohere on many levels beyond what the songs says on the surface. There's also a clever use of the cliche "It's so black and white," to set up the color blue in the title two lines later at the end of the chorus.
3) I also notice that there's mention of both fire and ice in both verse 1 and verse 2. This may be another way of subtly helping the song to cohere. It also may have some deeper significance that I'm just not noticing right now.
4) I love the do-wop elements in the song's writing and production. The most obvious element is the chorus vocal melody, especially on the first word of the chorus. We also hear triplet organ hits in the arrangement. In do-wop, the triplets were often played on a reverb-laden piano track. By using an organ, and by mixing the track differently than it may have been mixed in a do-wop track, this arrangement brings the reference into a different genre and a different time period, while preserving the feeling of the reference material. Finally, the heavy guitar reverb, as well as many of the guitar elements themselves, strongly point to do-wop.
5) I have to notice again that we have a guitar solo in place of a bridge; very popular move these days.