Lyrics Got Loud

Although it wasn't released until 2006, Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz says the band's breakout song "Start Wearing Purple" was actually written in 1995. Hutz says the song is about a crazy neighbor he once had while living with his then-girlfriend. The neighbor was an old lady who used to dress in purple head-to-toe. According to Hutz, the woman was "clearly bonkers." When Hutz and his girlfriend had an argument, the girlfriend would scream and Hutz would respond by saying "you might as well start wearing purple now."

"It’s a very deep, spiritual song. It’s actually the least serious song I’ve every written. It’s actually one of the very few songs that was written for a girl, which was my girlfriend at the time. When I first moved to New York in ’98 I had this, kind of obsessive, crazy psychic gypsy lady who was living right next to us, in our building. And you know how it is some people have this fixation with a certain colour, and purple is one of those colours, and that is the whole archetype of these ladies, she was wearing everything: shoes, stockings, handkerchief, skirt, coat, everything, purple shades she was crazy. And one of my girlfriends, she was getting crazy, getting out of hand I was saying ‘you might as well start wearing purple now, because that’s exactly what’s gonna happen to you’. One day I just sat down with a guitar and basically just set it down with just an A minor chord and a song rolled out of it. I love it when that happens. Some songs just roll out.."