I am gonna hide this post where Helen can’t find it!!
In 1972 I was 15 going on 16 and I loved Neil Diamond and especially Hot August Night, the live double that more than a career retro was a rebuilding of the Diamond franchise as a middle brow, middle class rock extravaganza for people who wouldn’t know rock if you stuck it in a slingshot and aimed it at their heads.
Which means me, I guess.
Punk was four years away and this is and remains highly addictive, overwrought, over sung, and over orchestrated slop. Nowadays I find it vaguely quaint and not all bad. I mean I can hear why I obsessed, because like all songs sung blue, everybody could “dee dee dee dumb” along with it and, wow, if you close your eyes real tight maybe it sounds kinda profound: “I know a man who was all a touch, and he’d hide in the house and he didn’t say much…” Of course, this means absolutely nothing but…
Back to closing my eyes:
It is the summer of 1972 and Beirut isn’t up in flames yet and my parents are alive and my hair is long and my jeans are bell bottoms and I’m walking down Hamra Street with my friends working our way downwards to the Mediterranian sea. Diddley dee dee dee.