“Rainbow” is a song by Kacey Musgraves, which appears on her third studio album, Golden Hour. The song was officially confirmed by Billboard, as being released as the fifth single from the album on January 11th, 2019.

In conversation with World Cafe and NPR Music’s Talia Schlanger, Musgraves explains that “Rainbow was an old song that resurfaced at the end of the recording process to make the final cut for the album.“ She elaborates:

It was a song that I wrote about six years ago. When I went into making this album, it just felt like something was missing. I had my groovy love songs covered; I had my sassy “High Horse,” irreverent, “screw you” song covered. An album isn’t necessarily completely about finding different angles to songs, [but] I did want it to be a well-rounded record. Before we sent everything off to the presses, I went back in my old songs and I found “Rainbow” again. I was like, man, this hasn’t gotten to go on an album yet and it means something to me. I dug it back out and I played it for Ian [Fitchuk] and Daniel [Tashian], the two guys I made the record with, and I was like “What do y’all think about this song? I kind of think it should be on there.” They were like, crying, and “absolutely yes, we have to put it on there.”

Musgraves performed an emotional rendition of “Rainbow” on Late Night with Seth Meyers on September 16, 2018.

About performing the song, she’s said:

The song was my grandmother’s favorite before she passed away. She passed away unexpectedly a several years ago, and it was the song I wrote last right before she passed. I would send her songs all the time and she, for some reason, really took a liking to that song. When she did pass, at her funeral, I thought it would be nice to play that song, so we did. That’s what it reminds me of.