What is the “color of boom”?

Question

In Imagine Dragon's song Polaroid, there's a certain line that gets repeated throughout the song:

I am the color of boom

What is the meaning of this line? Does it mean like an explosion of color, or like a firework? How does "boom" have a color?

Answer 1

The singer feels like an unfulfilled promise, or an anticlimax.

In terms of what this lyric means in the song, I think the interpretation is best understood when you examine the lyrical pairings that come after it. The full lyric in question is:

I am the color of boom / That's never arriving

Then, after that, there are two different lyrics that pair with it, one from the first chorus and the other from the second chorus.

...And you are the pay raise / Always a touch out of view (first chorus)

...And you are the opera / Always on time and in tune (second chorus)

Both of these are, lyrically, expressing the idea that while the singer is an unfulfilled anticlimax (a boom that never arrives), the person referenced in the song as "you" is a pay raise and an in-tune opera, a satisfying climax who delivers on the promise given. They are the opposite of an anticlimax.

This interpretation is reinforced by another, fairly straightforward line from the song:

I am a head case.

It also pairs with the meaning of the song as a whole, expressing the singer's misfortunes in life and his frustration that his failings get in the way of his relationships. He's singing about how he can never seem to find the picturesque, "Polaroid" romance, a relationship goal that he can never seem to achieve. If you think of the "color of boom" being like a firework, something that would obviously be right at home in a photograph, I think that explains the strange choice of imagery.

From all of these lines taken together, we can take the meaning of these lyrics to be that the singer, in comparison to the person he's singing about, feels like a failure and someone who never delivers on their promises, compared to the person who always delivers what they promise - being in-tune, on-time, etc.