I’ll link the video for The Muppets, Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem version, just for fun:
I heard this song on the radio all the time when I was a young kid in the 1970s. I didn't get what the song was about back then ...… and I honestly don’t get it now that I’m 50.
Talk amongst yourselves. I’m all verklempt.
Kodachrome was a color film introduced in the 1930s and discontinued in the 2000s.
3:27
ETA:Basically, it’s about nostalgia with photography as a metaphor.
I always took it as some kind of contrast between reality and imagination. OTOH, maybe it’s just about a guy who likes his camera.
Yup, pretty much nostalgia. Thinking back on high school, on girls he used to know.
3:27 is Floyd pulling on a chain to the left, then being chained from the right.
Hmm. A message to stop looking to the past and come join the future?
[quote=“Mister_Rik, post:1, topic:764994”]
I’ll link the video for The Muppets, Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem version, just for fun:
[/QUOTE] Ooh, they got some of the oldies out of the back of the closet for that one, didn't they?You can capture the colors of a summer day on Kodachrome, but you can’t capture the experiences of your life; they’re gone forever.
That’s the best interpretation I’ve ever heard 
On the other hand, memories and sweet imagination is probably better than it really was.
I always hear this line as “they never match my sweet ‘re-magination’”, and interpret this made up word to me mean the mind’s tendency to take good memories and make them even better over time.
It’s literally impossible for me not to hear the “r” sound at the beginning of that word. I swear it’s there; why doesn’t anyone else hear it? 
3:27 is what Paul Simon’s Kodachrome is about.
It’s about 3:27. Seemed pretty obvious to me.
Okay, I’m whooshed. 3:27?
…is about how long it is.
This is an ancient joke.
What’s this song about?
It’s about three minutes and 27 seconds.
:smack:
“Whoosh” pretty much sums it up.
::scuffles back::
Back when the song came out, radio stations bleeped the word “crap” in the first line. Things have certainly changed. Also, Kodak took brief exception to Simon’s use of ‘Kodachrome’, but I don’t think anything came from it. Free advertising and all that.
I can’t really add anything here to others’ interpretations… they are spot on… I just came in here to say thanks for posting the vid. Made my day.
You know what? I listened to it again, and it sure does sound like “remagination.”
I always figured “Kodachrome” is the happy snap lookback onto “My Little Town”.
Before I posted that, I spun up the iPod, put on a good set of headphones, and listened again, just to be sure. There’s an “r” there. I swear! But I’ve never seen any reference to it online.
Apparently I’ve thought this for some time: Paul Simon's Kodachrome - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board