September 5, 2013
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A Solitary Man
I confess, I grew up enjoying Neil Diamond’s music. I even had some albums, and of course enjoyed I’m a Believer and other songs he wrote for the Monkees. In my adulthood he’s not someone I seek out, say, on Pandora, but the other day on an impulse I pulled up an ancient concert performance on YouTube and was impressed by the song A Solitary Man.
I like it. It’s lightly written, not sappy, not as pretentious as some of his other songs or performances. I have it on my YouTube channel among the songs I want to sing someday.
I’m not the only one who likes it. Johnny Cash thought enough of it to include it among his American series, and ended up winning a Best Vocal Performance award for it.
Here are the lyrics:
Melinda was mine ’til the time that I found her
Holdin’ Jim
And lovin’ him
Then Sue came along, loved me strong, that’s what I thought
But me and Sue,
That died, too.
Don’t know that I will but until I can find me
A girl who’ll stay and won’t play games behind me
I’ll be what I am
A solitary man
A solitary man
I’ve had it to here being where love’s a small word
A part time thing
A paper ring
I know it’s been done havin’ one girl who loves you
Right or wrong
Weak or strong
Don’t know that I will but until I can find me
A girl who’ll stay and won’t play games behind me
I’ll be what I am
A solitary man
A solitary man
Don’t know that I will but until I can find me
A girl who’ll stay and won’t play games behind me
I’ll be what I am
A solitary man
A solitary man
A solitary man
A solitary man
A solitary man
A solitary man
Comments (16)
I always liked that song, Diamond’s version never heard Cash’s version til now.
Johnny Cash wrote a list of 100 great songs he wanted his daughter to learn. I don’t know if this is one of them, but he recorded a lot of great stuff by other writers on the America series. Ironic because Neil is Canadian. [Edit: he is not Canadian! I wonder where I got that idea?]
If you say so, I’ll give it another listen. ‘Sappy’; I need to wiki the exact meaning of that word. I usually use ‘maudlin’
i did read the lyrics though. A flashback of Mad magazine’s parody ‘Sleazy Rider’, where the Fonda and Hopper characters agree “Nobody likes us because of how we look, and talk, and act… and smell”
So great to see you here; I’ll be joining soon/JS
Ladies and gentlemen, Solberg is in the building!
Maudlin is a great word. I need to remember it when I post something by Leonardo Favio.
Terry Southern, who worked on Easy Rider, visited my Fiction Writing class when I was a college senior. One of my classmates asked if he recommended writing while high Terry said, “The problem is that while you’re high, you come up with all this really deep stuff, and you write it down. And then you look at it the next morning, and it’s completely trivial.”
I was gonna’ use a bunch of Neil Diamond Hit titles in my comment. But, I’m too lazy to do that right now!
Sing Solitary Man and let us know how it goes! You can do it!
HUGS!!!
I love Neil Diamond. I think I have all his albums.
I liked him more when I was young, partly because he had a strong voice. Now I only listen to certain songs. He’s an interesting guy.
Great story about Terry Southern. One song I wrote while ‘testing’ some of my herbal whatever (grown for others; i haven’t much touched it since like ’67) was, in my imagination, zeh piece de resistance/coupe deville of songwriting. In the morning I erased the whole damnPOS, red-faced. Yes, precisely, judgment… and the knowledge of good and bad (evil?) is tres importante. We supposedly learned it in the Garden of eden.
Thanks, Tim, for the nice welcome.
I’m wondering whether legit users like you get a notice here of a reply. I have to recheck each blog, and scroll down to check. Such a no-brain desirable feature… and they missed it.
anyway, I’m chasing down 48 bucks or whatever as we speak. My own ‘ghost’ site is an abandoned car-lot for now, even though the reader does spit out blogs of folks I knew (or who subbed to me) for my convenience.
ha, i can also, I believe, type a brief bio, in 138 characters, describing meself.
Only problem; I’m at least 140 characters, depending on the mood.
Good to see you here. I just *knew* the site would live on.
Oh, and I listened to NEIL DIAMOND backwards. Bad move. They slapped me with a DNO MAID LIEN. And I don’t even have a maid. now I gotta go sit in line at the dep’t of naturalization and occupation. And try to look natural, but pre-occupied.
(btw, did you notice that stupid Word Press’s reply box has no blinking cursor, but that here we do? Just that byte of thoughtfulness alone will keep me here, not there.
I have noticed the lack of a missing cursor. It sometimes makes me think I’ve lost it somewhere.
Neil Diamond is his real name. (I suspect his ancestors adopted Diamond at Ellis Island, leaving behind something like Pflugelheimer or Wojostokevic.) I was surprised to read that early on he seriously considered a stage name. The options he was considering were “Noah Kaminsky” and “Eice Charry”, neither of which has much palindromic potential, but maybe he wanted to honor his ancestry.
There is a Comments tab on the dashboard but I don’t know how reliable it is. When there are unread comments a number will show there.
Of course I did not know but the solitary man Diamond uses simple words and sings clearly and not frantically
Thanks to share with us .
In friendship to you both
Michel
http://fauquet.xanga.com/
Thank you, Michel. I do enjoy Neil Diamond’s music and his voice
Passing on some important information:
Name Link not Working?
If you notice that names in comments are no longer clickable and the avatars lead to a ‘not found’ page, do this: Top right, of your screen where your cute lil avatar is, chose Edit Profile. Scroll through and look for the space next to Website. Add in your xanga address (eg. http://myname.xanga.com) and this make it so that your name becomes a clickable link. It still does not work with your avatar image however.
Try this! It worked for me!
HUGS!!!
Good stuff. Thanks.
I like Johnny Cash’s version better…I think…I wonder if Rosanne ever learned it.
It’s not as hokey. No trombones. But I like Neil’s okay.