While driving in the car today I heard OutKast’s song, Hey Ya! I laughed at the mental image conjured up by the line:
Shake it like a Polaroid picture
Anyone who grew up in the 70s or 80s can easily bring to mind a memory of someone shaking a Polaroid as soon as it was spit out of the camera. Everyone did it. But why?
Anyway, Hey Ya! got me thinking of other song lyrics that evoke great mental imagery…
How about the opening line to Katy Perry’s Firework:
Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?
We’ve all seen a plastic grocery bag tumbling across the street on a breezy day. I think it’s an interesting commentary on today’s world that “plastic bag” is used to created the image. If the song was written 30 years ago, the song writer probably would have used “dry, fall leaf.”
Next up is U2’s Miracle Drug:
Freedom has a scent
Like the top of a new born baby’s head
What are two things that are incredibly hard to put into words? Freedom and that wonderful baby smell. So why not make them synonymous?
Finally, perhaps my all time favorite line from a song comes from Sting’s Fields of Gold:
Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
Among the fields of gold
Ah… that one’s great.
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Your Turn
What song lyrics create strong imagery for you?
2 comments:
I could come up with a few but you try and keep your blog PG. LOL
Because it was damp.I remember my Aunt Magga having one when she visited Iceland from California in the middle 60's,I was amazed by it.
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