藍紫色
藍紫色 made its debut as 新曲5 (Shinkyoku 5) ("New Song 5") on August 7, 1997. It was also mentioned in FOOL'S MATE #198 (April 1998), where Kyo explains that 新曲2 and 新曲5 were not finished and had yet to receive proper titles. On May 5, 1998, when the song was performed as 藍紫色 for the first time, Kyo also announced it as such. The official website confirms that the song was played as late as November 2, 1998.[1] This was also the last performance of the song, there are ten confirmed performances in total.
In June 2023, Shinya uploaded a short video to YouTube where he played a drum phrase from this song. This marks the first known time the song was publically referenced by one of the band members since their indies days.
Based on the number of lives and the known and unknown setlists, this song was most likely performed the most often out of the four unreleased songs. You can listen to the October 28, 1997, performance of the song here.
Trivia
Title
- A live report from Dir En Grey's indies days lists this song as ランシ色 (Ranshishoku).
- The kanji that make up this song's title can also be read as 藍 (ai), 紫 (murasaki) and 色 (iro), respectively. Because the live recording where Kyo announces the song as "Ranshishoku" is not available to the general fanbase and the aforementioned live report is also not widely known, 藍紫色 became known as "Ai Murasaki Iro" even to Japanese fans. This misunderstanding then spread to Western fans as early as 2002.
- This song can also be found written as 愛紫色 (Ai Murasaki Iro) on the internet, likely due to a misunderstanding of the word "Ai", which is most commonly associated with the kanji 愛, meaning "love".
Title Variants
| Title | Release |
|---|---|
| 新曲5 | – |
| ランシ色 | – |