[Sparkologist]

“If a picture paints a thousand words…” went the lyric to a song.
But how many words does it take to paint a picture? Surely this is the mark of a good songwriter. The ability to create an image in the mind of the audience or listener is what sets apart a merely good songwriter from a great one. I propose to you that Paddy McAloon of Prefab Sprout is a great lyricist.
Take the song ‘Cars and Girls’, with the lines:

“Little boy, got a hot-rod,
Thinks it makes him some kind of new God….”

This for me paints a picture of every spotty little Herbet seventeen year old who ever passed their driving test and jumped behind the wheel of a Vauxhall Nova SR.

In the song ‘The King of Rock& Roll’, there is the lyric:

“All my lazy teenage boasts, are now high precision ghosts,
And they’re coming round the track to haunt me.”

This probably rings true for everyone. But would we say it so subtly?

Paddy McAloon, the master of the metaphor.