Black.

You can be back in black; get a black eye; be black as night; get a black licence; buy something off the black market; have a black mark against your name; be cursed with the black spot; and nowadays, we want to paint it black.

Black can be thought of in a couple of different ways; as the presence of all colour, or the absence of all light. The former brings to mind thoughts of being very busy, cluttered, and noisy. The latter is dark, shady and suspect. The latter seems to be more where most of the thoughts of black reside. Though, interestingly, it seems that a good few opinions on black are drawn from people's opinions of night - and because the two seem to be so synonymous, the one becomes the other.

Generally, the connotations with black are words like deep, dark, bad, evil, night, sin, despair, pain, suffering, torture, and sometimes violence. It also relates in to extreme difficulty or challenge (like a black diamond ski run). More recently, it has also been related in to cool, quiet, smooth, calm, and other similar words - these, I believe, have been derived more from people's perceptions of night than black in itself. Though "quiet" could be in relation to ninjas. Some also relate it to power, or strength.

For me, black does bring to mind the worst of times. The darkest of places. The hardest of obstacles and paths to tread. But, in the same way, it reminds me that if this is the worst, things can only get better; otherwise they wouldn't be the worst. If you're in the blackest night, even the smallest light can seem like the brightest star.

For each colour, I'm also going to have a song to go with it - taking a bit of a leaf from ol' Mozart's book. Today, it's "All Black" by Good Charlotte.