Theme Ride Thursday: Colors! 🎨

March 21 is International Color Day, a day to celebrate all the hues that brighten our lives. But honestly, colors don’t need a special day—they’re a fun theme for your rides any time of the year.

Why is it that seeing a rainbow can make you stop in your tracks, pull out your phone, and snap a photo? Colors just have that power. Marketing has always been fascinated by the psychology of color. While science still has plenty to learn about how our brains perceive color, we’ve known for decades that color can influence mood, behavior, and even purchasing decisions. Brands use it intentionally to make us feel, decide, and act in certain ways.

Take green, for example. Look at all the green logos around us—Starbucks, Spotify, BP, John Deere, Whole Foods, Heineken…

The color green has been described as:

• Symbolizing nature and growth
• Soothing, relaxing, and calming
• Inspiring trust, prosperity, and balance
• Beneficial to the mind and body

Green is even used in stores to relax shoppers, encourage harmony, and help people make buying decisions—tricky marketers, indeed!

🎨 What Each Color Means

Color meanings can vary depending on the source, culture, or context. For general reference, here’s a widely used set of associations (including the Visme chart):

• Red: Energy, passion, action, confidence, excitement
• Orange: Creativity, enthusiasm, fun, warmth, adventure
• Yellow: Happiness, optimism, intellect, clarity, cheerfulness
• Green: Nature, growth, harmony, balance, trust
• Blue: Calm, reliability, peace, communication, focus
• Purple: Luxury, wisdom, creativity, spirituality, mystery
• Pink: Compassion, love, playfulness, kindness, femininity
• Black: Power, elegance, sophistication, mystery
• White: Purity, simplicity, cleanliness, clarity, new beginnings
• Brown: Stability, reliability, comfort, support, earthiness
• Gold: Success, wealth, achievement, prestige, illumination

🎶 Color Your Ride

Our massive bucket playlist of colors has over 600 songs—plenty to theme an entire ride around a single color or mix and match for a colorful journey. With so many songs across the spectrum, you could easily create multiple rides built around different colors.

Try:

• Single-color rides: Go all red for National Wear Red Day or Valentine’s Day, all green for Saint Patrick’s Day or Earth Day, or all blue for a calm, steady ride.
• Black & white: Classic, dramatic, or nostalgic vibes. Dueling intervals would make a fun black vs. white profile!
• Rainbow rides: Hit a different color for each interval or climb. Finish with a song that mentions multiple colors. 
• Local sports team colors: Pick the colors of a favorite pro, college, or high school team and ride in their spirit!
• Traffic lights: Build a ride around green, yellow, and red lights—there are plenty of songs about lights to create a fun stop-and-go sub-theme.

🎵 Songs by Color

Here are just a few favorites to get you started:

• Green: “Green Light,” Lorde; “Green Light,” John Legend & Andre 3000; “Greenlight,” Pitbull, Flo Rida & LunchMoney Lewis
• Red: “Red Lights,” Tiësto; “99 Red Balloons,” Nena; “Red, Red Wine,” UB40
• Yellow: “Yellow Submarine,” The Beatles; “Yellow,” Robin Schulz & Disciples; “Black and Yellow,” Wiz Khalifa
• Blue: “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” Crosby, Stills & Nash; “Clearest Blue,” CHVRCHES; “Blue Jeans,” Lana Del Rey (any remix)
• Orange: “Orange Crush,” R.E.M.; “Orange Juice,” Tomppabeats
• Purple: “Purple Rain,” Prince; “Purple Haze,” Jimi Hendrix; “Purple Stain,” Red Hot Chili Peppers.
• Pink: “Little Pink Houses,” John Mellencamp, “Pink Cadillac,” Bruce Springsteen; “Pretty in Pink,” by the Psychedelic Furs
• White: “White Flag,” Joseph; “White Lines,” Grandmaster Flash; “White Wedding,” Billy Idol
• Black: “Black Betty,” Ram Jam; “Paint it Black,” The Rolling Stones; “Back in Black,” AC/DC
• Brown: “Brown Sugar,” The Rolling Stones, “Brown Eyed Girl,” Van Morrison
• Gold: “Black and Gold,” Sam Sparro; “Gold on the Ceiling,” The Black Keys, “Fields of Gold,” Sting

And just for fun:

• “Colors,” Halsey
• “Colors,” Wild Club
• “Different Colors,” WALK THE MOON
• “Sound and Color,” Alabama Shakes
• “Purple Yellow Red and Blue,” Portugal. The Man 

Colors are all around us, and the possibilities are endless. Whether you pick a single color, a bold combo, or the full rainbow, your next ride can be a feast for the eyes as well as the legs.

Remember, there are two days officially devoted to colors: International Color Day (Mar. 21) and National Color Day (Oct. 22 in the U.S.)—but honestly, any ride is a good excuse to celebrate them! 🌈

ICA members can find the bucket playlist—chock full of over 600 songs about colors—below.

Have a favorite color-themed song we may have missed? Share it with the community—we’re always looking to add more gems to the playlist!

Not on Spotify? No worries! Grab a free account, follow ICA playlists, and use them to explore and sort songs for your rides—then find your favorites on whichever music service you prefer.