Songfacts®:

• Even after landing a big hit in 2017 with "Feel It Still," Portugal. The Man stayed out of the spotlight, making news only for their music. They were far from famous (outside of their native Alaska and adopted town of Portland, Oregon, anyway) in 2013 when they released "Purple, Yellow, Red And Blue," but they had a sense for what it would be like, and they didn't want to go there. The song is a look at fame and how it affects people.
  
  "I was just trying to picture how all we want to do is have fun," frontman John Gourley said in a Songfacts interview. "Within the first lyrics, it's a more satirical take on the people that want to get into music to be famous, or get into acting to be famous, versus the actual love of it. That's like, 'When I grow up, I want to be a movie star.' It's stuff that's so far from us. I don't want to do that. And the outro kind of represents that, like, 'I just want something to believe in.'"
• The song "Purple Pills" by Eminem's group, D12, was an influence on this one. "I'll just be straight with you," John Gourley told Songfacts. "What I was picturing was 'Purple Hills,' the D12 song. Just pictured this really colorful, visual song. D12 and Eminem were influences on me growing up."
• This is part of Evil Friends, the seventh Portugal. The Man album and their second produced by Danger Mouse (Brian Burton), who gets a writing credit on the song along with John Gourley.
• The video, directed by Noel Paul and Stefan Moore contrasts glamorous locations like clubs and limousines with mundane locales like strip mall parking lots. Gourley, often covered in a blanket, stars in it alongside a girl who plays the part of an attention seeker.