2019Released
4:34

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Blue on Black. By Songfacts®.

When you mix blue and black, the black consumes the blue. It's a powerful metaphor for a one-sided or broken relationship, which seems to be what the song is about, although with lines like "tears on a river, push on a shove" it could also relate to a death or abuse of some kind. In a Songfacts interview with Kenny Wayne Shepherd, he said: "So many people have applied it to a death in the family, an abusive relationship, a broken relationship, or whatever. There are so many different ways. That's what's beautiful about music and lyrics is trying to write a song that the listener can apply to their own experience in whatever way seems fit. And that's one of those songs."

Shepherd wrote this with the husband-and-wife team of Tia Sillers and Mark Selby, who also composed "There's Your Trouble" for Dixie Chicks. "We wrote that when we were down in New Orleans," Shepherd told Songfacts. "I had the music, and Mark and I were just rolling with the music and tried to develop things up. Tia came up with this idea based on a shirt that I was wearing that was blue and black. She noticed the two colors that were dominant on my shirt, and if you mix those two colors together, black consumes the blue. It doesn't amount to anything if you put the two together: You still have one color, instead of creating a new color."

With this track, Shepherd became one of the few blues artists to land on the Hot 100. He never returned to that chart, but consistently went to #1 on the Billboard Blues Albums tally.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Blue on Black.
GKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
156BPM

Album

The album Blue on Black is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Blue on Black.
Prospect Park
2019 Prospect Park

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