Top 15 "Photography" songs

My beautiful wife has recently bought a new camera, and has been taking some photography lessons. I really admire her passion, and its great to see her really trying to develop her skills. It makes me look a bit silly in comparison, when my hobby of late seems to be writing meaningless music lists on the internet!!

Anyway, in honour of her, I thought this week’s theme would be photography. You might have to bear with me a bit here, because some of the songs might be a bit of a tenuous link to the theme, and many only have a fleeting reference, and are really about other things. It’s a top 15 this week. AND….I am really trying hard to get a list of songs that does not include Nickelback’s “Photograph”, which actually fits the theme well, and is probably Nickelback’s best song. But I don’t like Nickelback, so I don’t really want to have to include it….here’s hoping.

For each track on the list, I have picked a quote that shows you the photo/camera reference. Enjoy, and once again, feel free to comment and tell me what I have overlooked.

15 - Nightswimming – REM
(“The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago, turned around backwards so the windshield shows”)
I am not really a huge REM fan, I like their big hits, and hence the best of REM album that I have serves me fine. According to Wikipedia, Chris Martin from Coldplay called this the greatest song ever written. If that’s true, that is a massive call. It’s a nice enough ballad.

14 - A Boy Named Sue – Johnny Cash
(“I knew that snake was my own sweet dad, from a worn-out picture that my mother'd had”)
A novelty song, about a boy with an unfortunate name who tracks down his father and has words with him for giving him that name. But, once he understands the reason for it, he forms a slightly different view. Check it out if you haven’t heard it before.

13 - Picture – Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock
(“I found your picture today”)
People that know me know that I am a big fan of Sheryl Crow, and I must admit when I first heard of her pairing with Kid Rock, I was a little surprised. But it actually works quite well, with Sheryl’s sweet voice contrasting well with the rougher voice of Kid Rock. The song is well written, and tells the story of a troubled relationship. There is a great part in the song where they talk about how their respective characters are dealing with the breakup. Crow sings “I was heading to church”, whereas Rock sings “I was off to drink you away.”. For some reason, I have always liked that, it shows the contrast really well I think.

12 – Turning Japanese – The Vapours
(“I’ve Got Your Picture, I’ve got your picture”)
Time to throw in some great 80’s pop music. Although I am not really sure how to tackle the description for this one, as this song contains some downright filthy lyrics. Should I even mention that he “wants a doctor to take a picture” so he can ”look at you from inside as well”….hmmmmm….

11 - Send a Picture of Mother – Johnny Cash
(“and send a picture of mother if you can”)
The Man in Black makes his second appearance on this list. This song tells the story of two brothers who are in prison, one is due for release, but the other has to stay due to some poor behaviour whilst in prison. He laments the fact that he has to stay, and asks his brother to pass on his regards to his family, and then requests that he sends a picture of his mother. A moving song.

10 - I Only Understand Her in the Rain – Tim Rogers
(“I hate your old photos and the smiles that they contain, Yeh your old damn boyfriends, think I’ll leave ‘em out in the rain”)
When You am I released their album “Dress Me Slowly”, some editions had a bonus album of Tim Rogers, their lead singer, performing stripped back, acoustic songs with a collaboration called the Temperence Union. This collaboration contained a track called “Dreamin”. The song talked about feeling jealous after seeing photos of his partner with her ex. Fast forward a few years, and Tim’s solo album Spit Polish pops up with a track called “I Only Understand Her in the Rain”. The lyrics of this track sound mighty familiar. That is because it is the same song, but reworked to new music.

9 - Penny Lane – Beatles
(“In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs, Of every head he's had the pleasure to know. And all the people that come and go, Stop and say hello.”)
Now either that barber doesn’t have many customers, or else he has a lot of photographs! Paul’s little ode to where he grew up is a lovely little song. Sometimes I feel, like with a lot of Beatles songs, it doesn’t get the credit it deserves, as it is overshadowed by many other better Beatles songs, but it just has a nice feelgood flavour to it.

8 - Bad Day – REM
(“It's been a bad day. Please don't take a picture”)
Another REM song on the list. For those that don’t know this song, its very similar in structure to “It’s the end of the world as we know it”. In fact, Bad Day came first, but was left unfinished for many years, and kind of morphed into “…end of the world…” Years later, when the best of was released, this song was finished and added to that tracklisting.

7 - Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) – Green Day
(“So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind”)
Perhaps the most misinterpreted song of all time, it actually about a break up, but seems to be used all the time in a good way, and I would hazard a guess that it would probably be one of the most popular wedding songs since its release. It is a great song though, a simple acoustic track, and a big departure from Green Day’s other songs.

6 - Picture This – Blondie
(“All I want is a photo in my wallet. A small remembrance of something more solid. All I want is a picture of you.”)
Blondie are a great band, I liked “Heart of Glass” before I even knew who it was by. From the excellent album “Parallel Lines” comes “Picture This”, which perhaps you could call Blondie-by-numbers, but I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s a great track, but quintessentially Blondie.

5 - Girls on Film – Duran Duran –
(“There's a camera rolling on her back, on her back”)
This was one of the first songs that came to mind when I thought of this topic, mainly due to the camera noises that occur at the start. I know the song is quite famous for its film clip, considered quite risqué at the time, but to be honest with you, I don’t watch many film clips and I can’t even recall if I have seen it. Nevertheless, it’s a great piece of 80’s pop.

4 - There Goes the Neighbourhood – Sheryl Crow
(“Get out the camera, take a picture, the drag queens and the freaks, are all out on the town”)
I am a big Sheryl Crow fan, and this is one of her best. From her brilliant “Globe Sessions” album, allmusic.com describes this as a “Stonesy rocker”. I can understand the comparison, but it doesn’t do this song credit to dismiss this as just another rock track.

3 - Take a Picture – Filter
(“Could You Take My Picture, Cause I won’t remember”)
A great piece of pop/rock from the late 90’s early 00’s. One of the things I like about making these lists is that sometimes I like to look up the songs and find out a bit more about them. I have always enjoyed the dreamlike melody of this song, but not taken too much notice of the lyrics, other than the chorus. Anyway, it turns out that it is about the lead singer getting drunk on an aeroplane and taking off his clothes (as you do!)…which now helps the opening line “Awake on my airplane, awake on my airplane...my skin is bare, my skin is theirs” to make a lot of sense.

2- Hey Ya! – Outkast
(“Shake it like a Polaroid Picture”)
New Zealand. 2001. I travel to New Zealand and whilst I am over there, I catch up with an Aunt/uncle and cousin, a teenage schoolgirl at the time. Her taste in music was a fair bit different to mine, and so she was playing a lot of hip/hop type music that didn’t do a lot for me. Except for one song which stood out, featuring a very catchy chorus: “I’m sorry Ms Jackson, I am for reeeealll”. I couldn’t get that out of my head for the rest of the trip. I then try and find out who it is from, and discover it is a group called Outkast.

Fast forward several years, and another catchy track, with the Polaroid picture line seems to be everywhere, on radio, in TV, in shops. Despite the massive exposure though, it doesn’t seem to outstay its welcome, and again stands out as being a great song from a genre that doesn’t normally appeal to me. It comes as some surprise when I learn it is from Outkast as well…and brings back memories to my New Zealand trip.

I still haven’t purchased an Outkast album (although did buy the download of this song from itunes), but perhaps I should give them a shot.

1- Kodachrome – Paul Simon
(I got a Nikon camera, I love to take a photograph, So mama don't take my Kodachrome away)
The top photography song by a long margin, how could you not give it to a song that has a type of film as its title, as well as namedropping a camera brand!! Away from the the photo thing, it also contains one of the best opening song lines there is: “when I look back on all the crap I learned at high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” That’s damn fine songwriting right there.



So there it is, my photography list. In my introduction, I mentioned that this was in honour of my wife, but having gone back to look at the list, and realized that it contained songs about skinny dipping, fighting with your father, being in jail, masturbation, being jealous, having a bad day, breaking up with your partner, dodgy neighbourhoods, and getting drunk and stripping on a plane, perhaps it wasn’t my finest choice of dedications!!!....sorry bout that wifey!!