I don’t think that the answer given for what “bearded rainbow” means is correct. It doesn’t make much sense anyway. Most of the other FAQs out there seem to give a different answer;
http://guitar.isd.net/songs.html#“SWLABR”
“SWLABR”
Felix Pappalardi, the producer on the album Disraeli Gears, had just broken up with his girlfriend and was drawing mustaches on photos of her. SWLABR is the acronym for She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow.
This doesn’t necessary make sense either, but describing someone as a bearded rainbow like this makes more sense than saying that a rainbow is bearded because someone’s head is in the way. There wasn’t any source for the answer that SD gave…where did that come from?
The Mailbag item was, “What does the old Cream song title ‘SWLABR’ mean?”
Straight Dope staff member TubaDiva mentions in the article that one answer came from this website-- http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=cream;list
The Sixties being what they were, there are probably as many different answers to the question as there were people who will say, “Hey, I was there, man.”
Right…the URL they gave was just to the index of the Cream Webring (they didn’t cite a specific website), so I couldn’t be sure which site they were using. Most of the sites on that webring that mention it though generally talk about it referring to an ex girlfriend and drawing mustaches, etc. on a photograph. I was wondering what the source for this other story was, who actually said it, etc.
I’m pretty sure SWLABR is an initialism for “She walks like a bearded rainbow”, not “She was…” This information comes from the liner notes of “The Very Best of Cream”, Polydor release #31452 3752-2. It’s a well recorded album with 20 of the band’s more interesting songs. I’m sure the revelation of the correct word represented by “W” in the initialism clears up the the ambiguity surrounding this little problem.
Well, I’d always heard that SWLABR stood for “She Walks Like a Bearded Rainbow.” I never understood what that means, but it seemed to have a vaguely sexual connotation. That’s probably just my dirty mind.
We’re, uh, sure that it’s not “She walks like a breaded rainbow”? You know, rainbow on rye?
I got a variety of sources for this info, including: Disraeli Gears, Jack Bruce Guestbook, KFJC Playlist.
That last one in particular is what sold me on “She Was Lke a Bearded Rainbow.” Radio stations have to pay fees for the songs they play, so they have to keep accurate lists and if anybody knows the correct title to anything, it would be ASCAP/BMI/SESAC; it’s their business to know.
Then again, could be The Man is messing with us. Maybe it’s a conspiracy . . .
your humble TubaDiva