Interesting how sometimes the nuance of a song's lyrics can be altered by a change of just one word.

In Paul Simon's Kodachrome, he changed a word that altered the meaning of the lyrics.

In the original, "I know they'd never match my sweet imagination, everything looks worse in black and white"

In Central Park, he sang, "everything looks better in black and white.

In the original, 'black and white' is likely a metaphor for reality, Kodachrome is a metonym for the faculty of imagination, and the colours it adds to the memory, is its magic, deception, illusion and maybe delusion... hence, everything looks worse in reality compared to what imagination can do to its memory.

If "everything looks better in black and white", then the lyrics' framing is broken.

Now the memory is black and white? Reality is now 'in colour', and the worse for it? Then why beg not to have his Kodachrome taken away?

Probably a suck-up to The Colour Barrier.... that issue with many winding ways about it.

There was a Demon that lived out in the thin air........

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 9^th, 2025 at 10:47am:

Interesting how sometimes the nuance of a song's lyrics can be altered by a change of just one word. In Paul Simon's Kodachrome, he changed a word that altered the meaning of the lyrics. In the original, "I know they'd never match my sweet imagination, everything looks worse in black and white" In Central Park, he sang, "everything looks better in black and white. In the original, 'black and white' is likely a metaphor for reality, Kodachrome is a metonym for the faculty of imagination, and the colours it adds to the memory, is its magic, deception, illusion and maybe delusion... hence, everything looks worse in reality compared to what imagination can do to its memory. If "everything looks better in black and white", then the lyrics' framing is broken. Now the memory is black and white? Reality is now 'in colour', and the worse for it? Then why beg not to have his Kodachrome taken away?

Agree - he should not have changed the word - for whatever reason - but I bet it's because of PC.

My fondest memory of Paul Simon's Kodachrome is when they played it on the radio after it was released in 1973.

The opening line went like this:

"When I think back on all the *beep* I learned in high school".

Can't remember how many years passed after that before they allowed words like "crap" to be heard on the radio.

:)

Anyway, it's still one of the few songs about a commercial product that Kodak probably couldn't have paid its worth in its promotional value.

Another one would be 'Little Honda' by the Beach Boys.

Simon must have been in a revising mood at his Central Park concert.

He even risked adding an entire new verse to his mega-hit, 'The Boxer'.

He added,

"Now the years are rolling by me, they are rocking evenly and I am older than I once was, younger than I'll be, that's not unusual. No, it isn't strange after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same, after changes we are more or less the same"

Carl D wrote on May 17^th, 2025 at 2:51pm:

My fondest memory of Paul Simon's Kodachrome is when they played it on the radio after it was released in 1973. The opening line went like this: "When I think back on all the *beep* I learned in high school". Can't remember how many years passed after that before they allowed words like "crap" to be heard on the radio. :)

Ha! Like the Doors, 'Light My Fire", which apparently was banned from radio because of, 'girl we couldn't get much higher'!