American Songwriter has published a short appreciation piece highlighting three 1960s folk songs it considers strikingly visual, arguing that their writers could conjure vivid mental imagery through words and melody alone. The article frames these tracks as musical equivalents of paintings, where lyrics become physical characters, colours and tangible emotions that listeners cannot help but picture.

The three chosen songs are Joni Mitchell's "Chelsea Morning", praised for capturing the bohemian spirit of 1960s New York through a scene viewed from her Chelsea apartment window; Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne", described as a viscerally visual, still-life-like vignette of complicated love from a poet-turned-songwriter; and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", characterised as a surreal, impressionistic story about the pursuit of creativity that rewards repeated listening. For each, the writer quotes lyrics to illustrate the imagery and likens the song to a form of painting.