Songfacts®:

• Written in 6/8 time, "Self Portrait" was released on the 1975 debut album by Rainbow. Running to around 3 minutes 17 seconds, the dark lyrics are by the late great Ronnie James Dio and music by Ritchie Blackmore.
  
  The song uses a painting as a metaphor for the singer's despair and the sense that his life isn't real.
• Twenty-four years later, Ritchie Blackmore recorded this (as "Self-Portrait") with his group Blackmore's Night as the final track of their album Under A Violet Moon. This version features vocals by Blackmore's wife, Candice Night, whose acting experience surely helped her pull off the vocal. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2
• Blackmore described this song as "a cross between Bach's 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desire' and Hendrix' 'Manic Depression.'"