Black

“Into some bar called The Black Dog”

The colour black carries its archetypal symbolic meaning of death, sadness, and depression throughout the song. Uncle Jerry identifies black as immediately signalling the emotional register: 'the word black has archetypal symbolic meaning, generally associated with being unalive or sad or depressed.'

“Sleepless in the onyx night”

Black as the colour of the speaker's past suffering, mourning, sadness, and death, set against the light and colour of opalite

“The ties were black, the lies were white In shades of gray in candlelight”

Black as part of the formal affair's color scheme, the black ties of the Met Gala setting, paired with white lies and gray to create a deliberate moral color palette where black marks the formal, potentially deceptive surface of the event.

“You cinephile in black and white”

Black and white represents the old-movie fantasy register, the partner is cast as a character in an idealised, fictionalized black-and-white film that is just 'a fantasy of light' rather than reality.

“Sequin smile, black lipstick”

Black lipstick as a marker of the adolescent, dramatic, gothic self, set in contrast to the implied adult red, with black representing the youthful persona's darker, more dramatic self-presentation.

“And the sky turned black like a perfect storm”

The sky turning black signals the onset of the emotional storm, the darkest point before the cleansing rain arrives.