As suggested by Redlemon.
As recently revealed in my journal, I am a synesthete; that is to say, that I perceive songs as having colours attached to them. The colours are not necessarily what you'd expect. The blues, for example, are sometimes actually blue, but are just as likely to be green or orange or even a bit purple. A lot of bass lines are purple, but not all of them. Some are red. Yellow Submarine is mostly yellow, but the song Yellow by Coldplay is blue and green with hardly any yellow at all.
You can read about how I discovered that I have this ability (or more accurately, how I discovered that not everybody does) in my journal.
So the thread concept. Redlemon has suggested that I might create a thread about my experiences. Basically, I'll be very happy to document my experiences as they relate to specific songs requested by you, my audience. Hopefully this will give you some insight as to what it's like to be a synesthete. If we have any other music->colour synesthetes around, feel free to pitch in with your impressions as well.
I'll start off with a freebie. As I type this I'm listening to the cover of Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World as performed by Bruddah Iz. I posted a video of it
here.
This song is absolutely beautiful. It's just such an island image; Bruddah Iz's voice is a very bright blue, while the ukulele is quite yellow. Think pastels; they're very wispy, like clouds, and sort of woven togeher. When he starts into What A Wonderful World, his voice takes on a bit more of a mauve hue and darkens a bit. The whole thing is quite lovely.
At the very end he switches from singing to a sort of scat/beatboxing (just as the song fades out); the change in his voice is a bit abrupt there in that it goes from it's pastel bright to a very rich, sort of dusky deep blue/purple colour. The ukulele continues to be a constant, pulsing trail of yellow right through to the end.
So. Anyone want to know what their favourite song looks like?