Rainbow is the name of at least four bands:

1. A British rock band.<… Read Full Bio ↴Rainbow is the name of at least four bands:

1. A British rock band.
2. A K-Pop group (레인보우).
3. A U.S. psychedelic rock band.
4. Mid-80's Hi-NRG project.

1. Rainbow was a British rock band formed by Deep Purple founder and former guitarist Ritchie Blackmore in 1975. In addition to Blackmore, the band originally consisted of former Elf lead singer Ronnie James Dio, bassist Craig Gruber, drummer Gary Driscoll, and keyboardist Micky Lee Soule. Over the years, Rainbow went through many lineup changes. including bringing in other vocalists Graham Bonnet and Joe Lynn Turner, before it folded in 1999.

The name of the band was inspired by the Rainbow Bar and Grill, a Los Angeles, California eatery which catered to rock stars, groupies, and rock enthusiasts. It was here that Ritchie spent some of his off time from Deep Purple and met Dio, whose band Elf had toured regularly as an opening act for Deep Purple. Blackmore originally got together with Dio to record "Black Sheep of the Family" as a single, and it turned out so well they needed a B side; when the B side was recorded, however, it turned out to be even better. This led to them recording an album, and that effort caused the formation of the entire band. Rainbow's debut album, 'Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow', was released in 1975; it featured the minor hit "Man on the Silver Mountain".

Blackmore fired everybody except Dio shortly after the album was recorded. He recruited drummer Cozy Powell (formerly of the Jeff Beck Group), bassist Jimmy Bain, and keyboard player Tony Carey. This lineup went on to record the album 'Rising', which was released in May 1976 and was a big success in the U.S. (hitting #48 on the Billboard 200 chart).

For the next album, 1978's 'Long Live Rock 'n' Roll', Blackmore kept Powell and Dio and replaced the rest of the band. Blackmore had difficulty finding a bass player for this record, so he played bass himself on all but three songs ("Gates of Babylon", "Kill the King", and "Sensitive to Light"). After the release and supporting tour, Dio left Rainbow.

Blackmore continued with Rainbow, replacing Dio with ex-Marbles vocalist Graham Bonnet. Powell stayed and was joined by former Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover and keyboardist Don Airey. The first album from the new lineup, 1979's 'Down to Earth', featured the band's first single successes: "All Night Long" and "Since You Been Gone". Bonnet possessed a powerful voice on stage, yet he struggled with the band's quieter numbers and lacked Dio's range. In 1980, the band headlined the inaugural Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in England. This was Powell's final performance with Rainbow.

The next album saw yet another line-up change as Bonnet and Powell were replaced by Joe Lynn Turner and Bobby Rondinelli, respectively. The title track from their 1981 album, 'Difficult to Cure', notably was a version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The album also contained the guitar-driven piece "Maybe Next Time". Although facing mixed success commercially, the Difficult to Cure tour was the first tour in which Rainbow headlined in the U.S.

Rainbow's next studio album was 'Straight between the Eyes'. The band added a new keyboardist, David Rosenthal. The album was more cohesive than 'Difficult to Cure' and had more success in the U.S. The band, however, was alienating some of its earlier fans with its more slick, arena rock based sound. The single "Stone Cold", a popular power ballad, had some chart success and has since been included in several multi-artist collaboration albums. The successful supporting tour skipped the U.K. completely and focused on the U.S. market.

1983's 'Bent Out of Shape' saw drummer Rondinelli fired in favour of Chuck Burgi. The album featured the single "Street of Dreams". The song's video was banned by MTV for its supposedly controversial hypnotic video clip. The resulting tour saw Rainbow return to the U.K. and also to Japan, where the band performed with a full orchestra. Though fans greatly enjoyed the band's lively touring, the band's material was getting mixed critical reviews, and its members had a sense of needing to find direction.

By the early to mid-80s, Blackmore and Glover had reformed the Deep Purple "Mark II" lineup, and Rainbow was disbanded in 1984. A final Rainbow album, 'Finyl Vinyl', was patched together from live tracks and B-sides of singles. This album contained the instrumental "Weiss Heim", made widely available for the first time.

After Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple for the final time in 1993, he put together a new version of Rainbow in 1994, this time named Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. This incarnation of the band included Doogie White (vocals), Paul Morris (keyboards), Greg Smith (bass), and John O'Reilly (drums).

The new band released Stranger in Us All in 1995 and embarked on an extensive world tour to promote it from late 1995 to late 1997. For the tour John O'Reilly was replaced by Chuck Burgi and then by John Micelli for the U.S. leg of the tour (as well as their final show in Esbjerg, Denmark).

The tour proved very successful, and a show in Germany was professionally filmed by Rockpalast. It has never officially been released, but has been heavily bootleged. The live shows featured frequent changes in set lists and musical improvisations that proved popular with bootleggers, and many shows are still traded over a decade later.

However, fed up with stadium rock, Blackmore turned his attention to rennaisance and mediaeval music, a lifelong interest of his. Rainbow was put on hold once again and played its final concert in Denmark in 1999. Blackmore, together with his partner Candice Night as vocalist, then formed the renaissance-influenced Blackmore's Night.

2. Rainbow, the tag for all releases by the K-Pop group 레인보우, responsible for tracks: "A", "Gossip Girl", "Mach", and about a dozen more.

3. One of any number of Los Angeles, U.S.A.groups of their time (1968), Rainbow's best-known LP was After the Storm The album's one cover is a take with saxophone of Willie Dixon's "I Just Want to Make Love to You". The lineup was: Darrell Devlin (drums), Bob Gay (bass),
W. David Mohr (keyboards), and Harry Vavela (guitars).

4. Rainbow was a short-lived Hi-NRG project by Allan Coelho (of Tapps and more) that released only one single, Humpty Dumpty, in 1986.

Self Portrait
Rainbow Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Paint me a picture
And hand it on the wall
Colour it darkly
The lines must start to crawl
Down, down, down

Spin me around and around
Draw me away

To the night from the day
Leave not a trace to be found
Down, down

Nothing is real
But the way that I feel
And I feel like going
Down, down...

Paint me a picture
Of eyes that never see
With flasks of lightning
That burn for only me
Hey, hey, hey

There's only the devil to pay
I'm ready to go
Pull me down from below
Give me a place I can lay
Hey, hey

Nothing is real
But the way that I feel

And I feel like going down Refrain
Down, down...

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Rainbow's song Self Portrait are centered around the theme of isolation and despair. The first verse starts by asking someone to paint a picture of the singer's inner state, calling for a dark and crawling image. The chorus, which repeats several times throughout the song, reveals the singer's desire to escape reality and go down into a darker place. The second verse asks for a picture of eyes that do not see and lightning that burns only for the singer, implying that the singer is feeling an intense sense of loneliness or abandonment. The second chorus repeats the previous sentiment, and the song continues to repeat the same themes of isolation and desire for escape throughout.

The lyrics to Self Portrait are open to interpretation, but they can be read as a cry for help from someone experiencing overwhelming emotions. The desire to go down could be interpreted as the desire to descend into a darker place to escape from the difficulties of life or mental health. The lightning imagery and the mention of the devil might suggest that the singer is struggling with something serious, like depression or addiction. The song is relatively simple lyrically, but it manages to express deep emotions regarding the human condition.

Line by Line Meaning

Paint me a picture
Create an image of my inner self

And hand it on the wall
Place it in plain sight as a testament to my identity

Colour it darkly
Depict it with deep and profound emotions

The lines must start to crawl
The lines should evoke a sense of movement and animation

Down, down, down
Descending into my own psyche

Spin me around and around
Dizzying thoughts and emotions consume me

Draw me away
Transport me from reality into my own world

To the night from the day
Transform me into someone else when no one is watching

Leave not a trace to be found
Vanish from where I stand without a trace

Down, down
I am falling furthur into my own mind

Nothing is real
I feel disconnected from reality