"Colour My Life" is the second single from British band M People

M People

M People are a British house music act from Manchester, who formed in 1990 and achieved success throughout most of the 1990s. The name M People is from the initials of Mike Pickering, who formed the group.-Career:...

 from their first album Northern Soul. It was written by Mike Pickering

Mike Pickering

Michael "Duncan" Pickering has DJed at The Haçienda's infamous "Nude" and "Hot" nights and later "Shine". He worked for Factory Records where he signed Happy Mondays, To Hell With Burgundy and James amongst others...

 and Paul Heard. The single was originally released in May 1991 as a vinyl only release and was given a full release on 24th February 1992. The song peaked at number thirty five on the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

.

Background

As one of the album’s premiere cuts, "Colour My Life" had already had built up a quite a following and gained critical praise in clubs as a much-played dance song when previewed as a White Label the year previously and most dance floors had picked up and rotated this version throughout 1991 providing great exposure.
The first single that M People

M People

M People are a British house music act from Manchester, who formed in 1990 and achieved success throughout most of the 1990s. The name M People is from the initials of Mike Pickering, who formed the group.-Career:...

’s Mike Pickering

Mike Pickering

Michael "Duncan" Pickering has DJed at The Haçienda's infamous "Nude" and "Hot" nights and later "Shine". He worked for Factory Records where he signed Happy Mondays, To Hell With Burgundy and James amongst others...

 wrote for specifically for lead vocalist, 25-year-old Heather Small

Heather Small

Heather Small is a British soul singer, best known for being the lead singer in the Manchester based band M People. Her debut solo album was Proud in 2000...

 and the first M People track she ever recorded.

Chart performance

The single became their second moderate chart hit, but did not fairing as well as predecessor How Can I Love You More?

How Can I Love You More?

"How Can I Love You More" is the debut single from British band M People taken from their debut album Northern Soul. It was written by Mike Pickering and Paul Heard, and produced by M People. The single was first released in 1991 peaking at number 29 and then re-released on 25 January 1993 with...

which scraped into the Top 30 at 29.
In the week of release the single sold 7,400 copies to land at number 37, but club support saw the single maintain sales and climb in its second week to peak at number 35 selling a further 8,000 copies.

Remixes

There are several different mixes of the single, but the main version is simply known as "Colour My Life". Other versions are slight remixes of the single with "Colour my life (Part One)", "Colour My Life (Part Two)" and "Colour My Life (Original Mix)". The "Original Mix" appears on the Limited Release and on Northern Soul, but not on this single.

Music video

The studio-set video features Heather Small singing and dancing in a striking lime green jacket centre stage with the band playing along in the background. Paul Heard is playing bass guitar and Mike Pickering on the keyboards, not their normal instruments to play and also a drummer percussionist and two lively backing singers co-ordinating dance moves with their arms.

Artwork

The artwork of the single combines the lines used in the limited release to become four colourful "flowers" that comprise of differently coloured red, blue, green and purple circles which is very much in-keeping with the big red flower illustration that is on the parent’s album’s artwork.