What does Kodachrome mean?

Paul Simon: Kodachrome Meaning

Album cover for Kodachrome album cover

Song Released: 1973


Kodachrome Lyrics

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
Its a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of edu---cation
Hasnt hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They...

  1. anonymous
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    Mar 7th 2011 !⃝

    Its seems as if the person is out of high school and thinking back to his younger years realizing that he should have been a better student and live a better future career wise.
    He then thinks of his social life and remember the good times he had with women and is weighing the difference of having a good education while living a less social life. Sound familair?

  2. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Feb 7th 2011 !⃝

    That last line in Bob Dylan's interpretation is 100% facetious. The very last thing someone with a pen name like Bob Dylan would be is hateful towards a fellow musical genius like Simon.
    Back in the Fifties' when Paul was an adolescent we didn't have much color photography--"Everything looks worse in Black & White".
    Of course, every things just insanely wonderful today and we can buy a IPOD and watch porn anywhere we want to--FOR FREE!!!!
    Praise America! The Home of the FREE!!!! Free porn that is! Just another American addiction--like Vince Vaugh movies.....

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  3. m320753
    click a star to vote
    Sep 22nd 2010 !⃝

    with such a deep excursion into the mind and souls of paul simon i couldn't improve on anything the first commenter said. as far as bob dylan actually commenting i don't think so. time to come out of your self imposed life as dylan. dylan in public forums as tv interviews never has a bad word about any singer past present and as far into the future he has left,he's not into that. as he said i'll know my song well before i start singing is a direct opposite of your errors in spelling and grammar. for paul simon i like him a lot since back in the day. i think his kodachrome is his vision of what he wants his future to be. he has touched on this plan in many of his older songs.

  4. bobdylan
    click a star to vote
    Sep 13th 2010 !⃝

    Most times poets mean (or intend) one thing. Sometimes not. However, in this song he is being playful and perverse. It is indeed about an adolescent or a High School adolescent drop out who thanks God Himself for these beatifull colorized (even better than the real thing) picutered girly-girls--they all want me so!
    "If you took all the girls I knew when I was single, but them all together for one night"--Yikes! Paul's a damn pervert, creep!!!

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