Reply #11: "Color me relieved" is a survival of a bit of forty-year old pop culture [View All]

[Lydia Leftcoast]

Early in the 1960s, there was a "coloring book for adults" which had a series of cartoons with descriptions that mimicked the style of children's reading books. It had "instructions" like "color her green with envy" or "color him blue," but then it got more fanciful. (It's hard to explain. I wish I could find an excerpt on the Web.) The one I remember best had, I believe, some businessmen trying to gain the boss's favor and win a promotion. The caption was, "Color their noses burnt umber." :-)

Anyway, a couple of years later, Barbra Streisand came out with a song called, "My Coloring Book." Here are the lyrics:

For those who fancy coloring books

As certain people do

Here's a new one for you

A most unusual coloring book

The kind you never see

Crayons ready, very well

Begin to color me

These are the eyes that watched him

As he walked away

Color them gray

This is the heart that thought

He would always be true

Color it blue

These are the arms that held him

And touched him then lost him somehow

Color them empty now

These are the beads I wore

Until she came between

Color them green

This is the room I sleep in

Walk in and weep in

Hide in that nobody sees

Color it lonely, please

This is the man

The one I depended upon

Color him gone...

The song is pretty much forgotten, but the use of "color me..." has survived.