Gogol Bordello are a Gypsy Punk band created in the USA in 1999 and nowadays composed by
Eugene Hütz,
Sergey Ryabtsev,
Yuri Lemeshev,
Thomas Gobena,
Oren Kaplan,
Oliver Charles,
Elizabeth Sun and
Pedro Erazo.
The band's intention is to bring Gypsy/East-European music to the English-speaking world.
Gogol Bordello is a mix with
Nikolai Gogol - one of the most influential writers in Ukrainian and Russian literature and Bordello - the italian word for brothel or
"gentleman's club". The band's first name was
Hütz and the Béla Bartóks but they changed it because "nobody knows who the hell
Béla Bartók is in the United States". (
Béla Bártok is a Hungarian composer and pianist from the 20th century).
With 5 studio albums -
Voi-La Intruder (1999),
Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony (2002, later re-released in 2006),
Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike (2005, later re-released in 2006),
Super Taranta! (2007) and
Trans-Continental Hustle (2010) - besides one EP, one live album and several compilations.
Start Wearing Purple is the second single taken from
Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike. The song is a re-recording from a previous one that features on the band's first album
Voi-La Intruder. Also appears in the soundtrack for an independent film from 2005
Everything Is Illuminated, in which
Eugene Hütz performs as Alex along with
Elijah Wood.
Hütz said in an interview that
Start Wearing Purple was written in 1995 and "
It's one of the very few songs I wrote for a girl. I just moved in with my girlfriend in New York. We had a neighbour: an old woman who was always dressed in purple head to toe. She was clearly bonkers. So whenever my girlfriend and I had an argument and she would start screaming at me, I would say: you might as well start wearing purple now".
"Start wearing purple wearing purple
Start wearing purple for me now
All your sanity and wits they will all vanish
I promise, it's just a matter of time..."
