Kodachrome (song)

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Kodachrome is a song written by Paul Simon, and featured on his album There Goes Rhymin' Simon, which was released in May 1973.

The song is named after the Kodak film Kodachrome. The song became a major hit in the United States, but it was not a hit in Britain, most likely because British radio would not play the trademarked name.

Although Kodak required the album to note that Kodachrome is a trademark of Kodak, decades later Kodak used the song in commercials to sell film in the late 1990s.

The lyrics on There Goes Rhymin' Simon differed in wording from that on the Paul Simon's Concert in the Park, August 15, 1991. The former said, "...everything looks worse in black and white," but the latter said, "...everything looks better in black and white." The original wording clearly makes more sense in a song about the preeminence of color film. The word/concept reversal may, however, more clearly indicate a sense of nostalgia, in our advertising-intensive, multimedia-enabled, heavily networked and, especially, "technicolor" world.