As I was driving this weekend, I was listening to the radio and this song "If You Could Read My Mind" comes on, and this one line keeps nagging at me: 'Just like an old time movie, about a ghost from a wishing well.'
OK, first off, 'ghost from a wishing well'? I was not aware ghosts hung out around wishing wells. Lacks properly spooky atmosphere, don't you think? I suppose "ghost" could be code for "memory", since if one uses a wishing well, it's usually to get something back they lost, or gain something they never had, and the desire is linked to some pleasant or unpleasant memory that they can't escape.
More irritating is 'like an old time movie'. Why an old time movie? He's trying to be poetic with regards to the contents of his mind, so his mind works in black and white? There's no sound? All thoughts or memories associated with women are viewed in that soft focus where it looks like they put cloth over the lens?
What would be the differences in an old time (remembering the song is from the '70s) movie about a ghost at a wishing well, versus a new (read: 1970s) movie about the same subject? Would the newer movie be more ambiguous, with the ghost perhaps being a person who deserves this fate, while in the older version the person is a ghost because they were done in by foul play and must wanr their loved ones of danger? Would the old version be a slapstick comedy, and the new version some cheap horror flick?
What is so damn special about it being an old time movie?
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2 comments:
Hey, don't mock Gordon Lightfoot! At least it rhymes.
sallyp: He shouldn't have his song come on the radio while I'm in a frazzled mood from driving through a monsoon for an hour, and thus am feeling rather persnickety and nitpickety.
But you're right, it does rhyme. That counts for something.
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