Second in my series of songs featuring interesting metaphors is a track from Tift Merritt’s 2010 album See You On the Moon.
‘Papercut’ compares a former lover to one of those nasty little cuts that shouldn’t bother us as much as they do. It’s a fine metaphor for a break-up that continues to tear at us for no good reason.
My wife and I were listening to this song in the car the other day and I remarked that it was a lovely metaphor. Slow dancing in a burning room… what a neat way to describe a relationship that is clearly ending despite either party wanting to accept that fact.
We started kicking around other songs that use metaphor effectively, and I decided to dedicate this week to five of them. This is what happens when you’re married to an English teacher.
Simon & Garfunkel recorded together for just six years, releasing only five albums, but they made a major impact on popular music both through their sound and through the classic songs Paul Simon wrote for them to perform.
A couple of years after their (second) breakup, Paul Simon would start his solo career in earnest, but Garfunkel would remain a presence in his music in one way or another for more than a decade.
Simon & Garfunkel’s fifth and final album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, was released in 1970 and became the duo’s best-selling record as well as a Grammy Album of the Year winner. It was a massive critical and commercial success, topping the charts in 10 countries and selling more than 25 million copies worldwide.
And it was recorded and released as the lifelong friends saw their partnership collapse.
Tom Petty was really churning out albums in the late 70s and early 80s. His next album came out just a year after Hard Promises.
1982’s Long After Dark is the fifth straight Petty album to tread the same ground — short, muscular songs in what had become the Heartbreakers’ signature sound (I’ll borrow AllMusic.com’s The Byrds-meet-The Stones description again).
