Over the course of my life, I've come to believe this is not merely a metaphor or a manner of speaking, but is, at some level, literally true. What makes a work truly distinctive, what makes it speak to us, is that when we experience it we sense that the artist is speaking to us now, in the present. No dead echoes, no metaphors; rather, a communication in real time to our higher sensibilities. The creator of the object has spun a spell, ensorcelled themselves, sung a song of enchantment and embedded a piece of their very spirit in the product of their labors. They sing, but it is up to us to hear their song.
This is not to say that all songs are happy songs, or that the artist somehow self-consciously sings to us. Many songs are tearful, or angry, or despairing. That is not the point. Whatever our romantic fantasies, a work is not embued with spirit by some conscious spell-casting, because that would be a distraction, a diversion of creative energy from the work. It is the immersion in the act of creation that is the song. It is the focus of attention that creates the ensorcellment. To self-consciously turn aside is to disrupt and destroy the enchantment. Only a purity of intent and vision can achieve this magic.