 The opening stanza of "The Spectrum Song" tied each color to a specific note in a major scale, similar to the color-coding of a toy xylophone.Thus, the word "red" corresponded to the tonic, or octave note (Do), yellow was the major third or mediant note (Mi) (and the fourth note, Fa), green was the perfect fifth or dominant note (So), and so on.The first four notes of the song thus formed a major chord, do-mi-so-do (red-yellow-green-red), a playful variant on the exercise of singing scales, similar to the Rodgers and Hammerstein song "Do-Re-Mi" from "The Sound of Music".