Paul Simon's "Kodachrome": What is it about?

[Procrustus]

@Emtar_KronJonDerSohn

Kodachrome was a color film introduced in the 1930s and discontinued in the 2000s.

According to my memory banks, Kodak was considering discontinuing the film around the time the song was written.

[cochrane]

@Oly

I always figured “Kodachrome” is the happy snap lookback onto “My Little Town”.

Except “Kodachrome” came out two years before “My Little Town.”

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@Chefguy

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.

Well, Paul Simon’s song is still around, while Kodak Corporation isn’t. But this is an example of the kind of management that led them into bankruptcy.

[Stephe96]

@pulykamell

You know what? I listened to it again, and it sure does sound like “remagination.”

Huh. I hear it too. Interesting. But I can also kind of hear it as “sweet li’l magination” sung kind of quickly.

[Mister_Rik]

@Stephe96

Huh. I hear it too. Interesting. But I can also kind of hear it as “sweet li’l magination” sung kind of quickly.

That’s how I’ve always heard it.

[Oly]

@cochrane

Except “Kodachrome” came out two years before “My Little Town.”

OK, to be a little more spellouty: It’s not that"Kodachrome" the song is a lookback onto “My Little Town” the song. It’s that both songs are lookbacks onto the same past, with “Kodachrome” focused on just the happy snap moments, and by so extracting them perhaps creating them, and “My Little Town” portraying the general milieu in which said moments happened.