Songs About Photography
This list is just a start. Please add more to the comments section. Anybody have any idea about the first reference to photography in a song?
Cindy of a Thousand Lives – Billy Bragg
People Take Pictures Of Each Other – The Kinks
Picture Book – The Kinks
I turn my camera on – Spoon
Carry this picture – Dashboard Confessional
Paint A Vulgar Picture – The Smiths
Getting the picture – Jimmy Buffett
Panorama – The Cars
Picture – Kid Rock featuring Sheryl Crow
The Picture – Hubert Kah
Local Boy in the photograph - Stereophonics
F-stop blues – Jack Johnson
Photographs and Memories – Jim Croce
Life through a lens- Robbie Williams
Photograph – Weezer
Photograph – Nickelback
Photograph – Ringo Starr
Photograph – Johnny Mathis
Photograph- The Verve Pipe
Take a Picture – Filter
Pictures of You- The Cure
Distant camera – Neil Young
Please just take these photos from my hands - Snow Patrol
This Is Not A Photograph – Mission of Burma
Send a picture of Mother - Johnny Cash
Camera – R.E.M.
Freeze Frame – J. Geils Band
Camera One – Josh Joplin Group
Every picture tells a story - Rod Stewart
I Am A Camera – The Buggles
Into the lens – Yes (same song as I Am A Camera – The Buggles)
The Camera Eye – Rush
Nightswimming by REM
Just got another one from Pandora today: Jack Johnson – Pictures of People Taking Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLQ7tQnniVE
I think David Todd ’09 is working on a similar list…you should collaborate
from my collection:
I am a Photograph – Amanda Lear
Photographs of Naked Ladies – Toy Love
Polaroid – Front (from German New Wave Rarities)
Your Picture – Clarence “Frogman” Henry
Let Me Go Where My Pictures Go – Ludus
Fuji Film – Otomo Yoshihide (from Night Before the Death of the Sampling Virus, also containing tracks called Canon, Nikon, etc.) (instrumental)
Snapshots of Nairobi – The Homosexuals (instrumental)
Shake it Like a Polaroid Picture – Outkast
A Picture of her Face – Scott Joplin (instrumental)
Just this afternoon I heard a song called “I am the photographer” by Memphis. I can’t find the lyrics and can’t hear them well enough to say but you can listen to the song here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARfgsyra9X0.
nickel back, photograph. probably already been mentioned, but nevermind.
“All the Photos” by The Sea and Cake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqYjUUc-Axk
Anything by TAKE THAT..ha ha!!!!!
“Where you’ve been hiding” by Architecture in Helsinki
My apologies in advance, but here’s Rupaul “Snapshot” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf-A0XdzhRA
Starring Greg Crewdson- can you spot him?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8XluynKckE
Kodachromerockopera by Magnus Moriarty http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/02/magnus-moriarty-kodachromerockopera/
What about Cat Power “She’s got you”? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCdR3ZWqqMU
“I got your picture, she’s got you”
I’m late to this one, but Mutemath’s “Picture” would be a good addition to the list.
one more for a good measure?
grizzly bear, la douches anne
definitely about photographers, tired as ghosts, and stumbling into each other on the road…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrB342D500c
um, I mean Camera OBSCURA.
was this included:
Camera Obscure Your picture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQk17bCMCJY
“Photograph” by R.E.M. with Natalie Merchant
Diana Krall-Popsicle Toes.
I smile every time she says the line,
“How come you always load your Pentax when I’m in the nude.”
So I thought of that song instantly, regardless of the fact that its not a song about photography, specifically.
Fun list, James! I’d like to contribute Tom Waits “Picture In A Frame”. I think it is interesting how many of these songs about photography are full of one-sided sadness and loss. Willie Nelson has a great song called “If I Were A Painting” that basically taking on the other side of the singer/image relationship saying that if he were a painting, he wouldn’t feel pain.
the first picture of you by the lotus eaters
You may want to look up guitarist Bill Frisell. He just did a project on Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer.So it’s music inspired by photographs, subjects, light, etc… Frisell uses all his talent as a «jazz» guitarist to revisit the american music traditions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfWlnnyqoiM&feature=fvw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Disfarmer
“There’s an old Kodak camera in my dresser drawer
I ran across it just this afternoon
And I realized that I don’t ever use it anymore
In fact last time I did I think it was with you”
Who Needs Pictures by Brad Paisley
I started compiling this list of songs a couple of years ago:http://www.photoq.nl/articles/trivia/muziek/2008/06/26/fotografie-de-muziek/
Also a song that isn’t about photography, but the cover for their single “Nowhere Girl” was a tribute (or a rip-off) of a famous Bill Brandt photo.
http://www.discogs.com/image/R-150-101231-1173312614.jpeg
http://www.englandgallery.com/artist_work.php?mainId=172&groupId=none&_p=1&_gnum=8&media=Photography
Although it is not a song about photography, Don Henley’s “the end of the innocence” video is a direct quote to Robert Frank’s The Americans .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FPEBWZ1EOY
And, «Que reste-t’il de nos amours» by Charles Trenet, 1942
He writes: «Que reste-t’il de nos amours, une photo, très vielle photo de ma jeunesse…»
“Photograph” by Jamie Cullum
“Her name was written on the photograph, right next to her red sunburned face / It all had happened in that long, tall grass / About a mile from her old place…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKG6VbJH4to
How about “Wishing” by A Flock Of Seagulls?
“If I had a photograph of you / It’s something to remind me / I wouldn’t spend my life just wishing…”
Just a quick response to your photography in music blog.
You could consider Belle and Sebastian, whom I have always had the impression where very interested in photography.
There’s also an e.p called 3… 6… 9 seconds of light which should be of interest. It features an old (agfa) camera on the back sleeve and an interesting reference in the [http://www.belleandsebastian.com/recordings.php?release=14&view=info] liner notes. There is a further photography reference in the lyrics to the song [http://www.belleandsebastian.com/recordings.php?release=14&view=lyrics&lyrics=103] Beautiful.
Further to this is a simple reference in the song [http://www.belleandsebastian.com/recordings.php?release=12&view=lyrics&lyrics=121] Photo Jenny.
A Picture Of Our Torn Up Praise by Phosphorescent
“3×5′s” by John Mayer.
Photograph – Ringo Starr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc7RUHXsjxU
“Gentlemen Take Polaroids” by Japan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq-XvZ9TK98
Pictures of You – The Cure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNKRQGzossM
Let me take your photo – The speedies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8XluynKckE
With the added twist that the singer is Gregory Crewdson!
Renai Shashin by Ai Otsuka
Photograph by Jamie Cullum
Photograph- Def Lep
Tom Jobim, Desafinado “fotografei você na minha rolleiflex, revelou-se a sua enorme ingratidão”
Speedies – Let Me Take Your Photo
AND Gregory Crewdson was in the band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8XluynKckE
Kamera by Wilco. Kinda.
The Soviettes – Photograph (talks about looking at a photograph a couple of times)
Bishop Allen – click click click click
Camera Shy – The Lucksmiths
The Harsh Truth of the Camera Eye – Morrissey
I Hate Camera – The Bird and The Bee
Pictures – Mojave 3
The Bad Photographer – St. Etienne
The Camera Loves Me – The Would Be Goods
That Japan song is terrible and hilarious! Oboe solo!
Juanes – Fotografia
Depeche Mode – Photographic
Depeche Mode – Photograph Of You
Death Cab For Cutie – Photobooth
Fujiya & Miyagi – Photocopier
Taking Back Sunday – This Photograph Is Proof (I Know You Know)
Belle And Sebastian – Photo Jenny
Elliot Smith – Pictures Of Me
Depeche mode – photographic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUP5W10wGEA
DM, important influence for me
reguards
Pictures of Matchstick Men – Camper Van Beethoven
oh and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones : Pictures to Prove It
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwVcULy6_Z8
REM : Nightswimming
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago,
Turned around backwards so the windshield shows
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse
Still, it’s so much clearer
I forgot my shirt at the water’s edge
The moon is low tonight
Hey Terry,
it’s already there about 3/5ths down the page.
jp
Kodachrome by Paul Simon