The title stands for "She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow." Like the song's lyric, it is not supposed to make much sense. The words were written by Pete Brown, a poet who was friends with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce before they formed Cream. Early on, most of Cream's songs (including this one) were sung by Bruce. Brown was able to put words to the instrumental Cream tracks that Bruce was comfortable singing, making him a welcome addition to their songwriting process.
In a 2017 Songfacts interview with Pete Brown, he offered some insight into the lyric, notably the lines: You've got that rainbow feel But the rainbow has a beard "The rainbow was this kind of very radiant sexuality," he said. "It was a psychedelic time, not that I ever did big psychedelics - I did some small ones - and I was using color images a lot at that point. But unfortunately, because we were in the blues tradition, it's a bit misogynistic, that song I'm afraid. It's about someone whose girlfriend has given him the elbow and he's going around defacing pictures of her. It's not very nice really."
The song has a rather psychedelic feel, but Pete Brown insists he was not on acid when he wrote it. "I never knowingly took acid," he told Songfacts. "I used to watch people doing it and think, I don't want to be like that.'"
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