Belated Understanding.

I’ve been listening to the rock group 10cc for a long time (ever since my then wife threatened me with detention if I didn’t.) I was listening to an album of theirs in the car yesterday, and it was only then that I realised how clever a couple of the lines in Life is a Minestrone are:

The seat of learning and the flush of success

Relieve a constipated mind

Lyrics often skip over your head, don’t they? You hear them but you don’t listen to them. That’s why it came as a pleasant surprise to suddenly notice the metaphor attached to a couple of stock phrases. That’s clever writers’ stuff, that is. Lavatorial maybe, but clever.