These folk songs from the 1960s are stunning examples of visual songwriting. Though we don’t experience them with our eyes, our minds run rampant when these soft tracks come on. These folk legends could write music just as visually as any painting, without a brush or canvas. Melody is turned into colors. Lyrics are physical characters and tangible emotions. It’s impossible not to picture what these vivid lines are describing. Revisit these painterly 1960s songs below.
“Chelsea Morning” — Joni Mitchell
“Woke up, it was Chelsea morning / And the first thing that I saw / Was the sun through yellow curtains / And a rainbow on my wall,” Joni Mitchell sings in “Chelsea Morning”. Few songs have captured the bohemian spirit of 1960s New York better than this folk classic.
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Mitchell describes what she’s seeing outside the window of her Chelsea apartment. “And the first thing that I heard / Was a song outside my window / And the traffic wrote the words / It came ringing up like Christmas bells,” she says, expertly painting a big-city portrait with her words alone.
“Suzanne” — Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen was a poet first and a songwriter second. Each of his folk songs could stand on its own without any instrumentation, including “Suzanne”. “He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them / But he himself was broken long before the sky would open / Forsaken almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone,” Cohen sings in this emotive track.
Like a dimly lit still life, this Cohen song is viscerally visual. “Now, Suzanne takes your hand, and she leads you to the river / She’s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters,” he sings, creating a vignette of complicated love.
“Mr. Tambourine Man” — Bob Dylan
“Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship / Oh, my senses have been stripped, and my hands can’t feel to grip / And my toes too numb to step / Waitin’ only for my boot heels to be wanderin’,” Bob Dylan sings in “Mr. Tambourine Man”.
Dylan uses his singular songwriting to tell a surreal, impressionistic story about the pursuit of creativity. Like a painting you have to sit with for a while, this folk track holds much to discover every time you listen to it.
(Photo by Jim McCrary/Redferns)