‘Kodachrome’ - Paul Simon gives those nice bright colors

Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” began as “Goin’ Home,” but the poetic perfectionist soon felt that sounded too ordinary. Thus, he shifted creative gears, restructured the lyrics and came up with “Kodachrome,” which, to him, sounded close to “Goin’ Home” but stuck better in the listener’s ear.

After Simon heard the gospel-drenched Staple Singers hit “I’ll Take You There,” he knew that he wanted to record “Kodachrome” at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, the same cramped northwest Alabama locale that the Staples had utilized. The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section there consisted of four white guys who could lay down soul and rhythm-and-blues tracks as well as or better than anyone on the recording-session scene.

While the group may have been top-notch, the studio itself was a dump. David Hood, the outfit’s bass player, explained to songfacts.com, “Paul Simon was used to working at Columbia Studios in New York and at studios in England and different places. When he came and saw our little place, he probably thought, ‘Man, this is a rat trap,’ because it was.” One example of what awaited the sophisticated hitmaker was plastic covers tossed over the recording console that protected the costly piece of equipment when rain leaked from a hole in the roof.

Paul obviously managed to cast aside any concerns he had, as he nailed the master of “Kodachrome” in just two takes. Soon afterward, his single streaked to Number Two on the Billboard Hot 100. tion, he altered the plotline of his mini-story:

Kodachrome

Give us those nice bright colors

Golden Oldies

His tune could be seen as a coming-of-age treatise, perhaps how a young man could often choose to view the world through rose-colored glasses. (To Simon, this is what Kodachrome camera film offered.) But first, wanting to get something unrelated off his chest, he opened “Kodachrome” with a most quirky lyric line:

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school

It’s a wonder I can think at all

Then, without explana-

Give us the greens of summer

Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day

Certainly, it’s hard to let go of thoughts of a remembered carefree life of youthful pleasures and replace them with adulthood’s grittier realities. For Paul, this would include memories of past relationships which may not have been as sublime as he once recalled:

If you took all the girls I knew when I was single

And brought them all together for one night

I know they’d never match my sweet imagination

And everything looks worse in black and white

By the way, one should remind Simon that, when he and Art Garfunkel were in high school in New York, they had recorded a ditty called “Hey, Schoolgirl!” a bit of piffle (listed as being by Tom and Jerry) that reached the bottom of the national Top 40 chart. Royalties from the disc’s sales had bought teenage Paul a new fire-engine-red Chevy convertible.

Hey, maybe high school really wasn’t a complete waste of time after all.

This morning I woke up and thought, ‘Jennifer, you need to stop wasting time on Facebook and clean the house, weed the yard, fold the laundry, pay the bills, bathe the dog, go grocery shopping, and prepare a nice healthy dinner.’

Thankfully, I’m not Jennifer.

2022

1 Corinthians 13

New International Version

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

By Mary Ann Edwards

It’s not supposed to be like this.

That’s so very true.

What’s

Send

So, how did we get here? There’s no one answer. But I do think we all know we’re living in an extreme world of absolutes.

Extreme views, extreme anger. Absolute beliefs and absolute division.

Those extremes are a detriment to working together or even finding some sliver of common ground.

We’re focusing on the extremes – on both sides. No one listens to anyone else. It’s just whose side you’re on – and that’s the absolutely correct side – all the time.

But that’s not where the vast majority of us live.

I think we’re all tired of listening to those extreme, self-serving perspectives.

How about starting to have a real conversation and listen to some of our youth. I’m often amazed at their perceptions of the world and their ideas.

Talk to them. Communicate. What comes out of them may just be the beginning of change.

I know many of those young people. I’ve taught them. Yes, they are young and inexperienced, but make them part of the solution. They have ideas and energy, and many of them realize they are living in a messed-up world. They may not cure everything, but it’s a start.

And we need to start something, somewhere.

A bunch of legislators (many funded by big pharma or the gun lobby and trying to win re-election) will never be the answer to leading the change we need.

Try combining the energy of youth and the wisdom of age, and maybe, just maybe, it won’t continue to be like this.

Lubbock,Texas

806-744-2220

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“That’s all folks”

Mel Blanc Man of 1,000 voices.

The great voiceover artist Mel Blanc, who voiced Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Pie, Sylvester, and many other popular cartoon characters, was also the voice of Looney Tunes’ ubiquitous sign-off, “Thethe-the-that’s all folks.”

When Blanc died in 1989, his family made sure that all future generations who came upon his tombstone would know exactly what he was famous for in life.

“I will not be right back after this message.”

Merv Griffin and the final commercial break.

“Here lies Lester Moore, Four slugs from a 44, No Les, No more.”

In Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona.

“I’m filling my last cavity.” A dentist with a sense of humor.

“Here lies John Yeast – pardon me for not rising”

On a tombstone in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

And some more creative tombstone inscriptions: “This atheist is all dressed up with nowhere to go.”

Quality End of Life Care