The Guy in the White Van With No Windows In The Back was listening to the radio...
I shake my head. I shake my head every time the radio plays Bob Dylan. I want a singer to sing what is real, not just what he oh-so-cleverly rhymes. I hate 'clever'. Clever is for Dicks. For me the real 'Bob Dylan' is Neil Diamond...
Give me a Neil Diamond song and I will give you a bit of America that is True. "Everybody Must Get Stoned"? I call Bullshit. I call Bullshit on hipsters and tricksters and rappers and sideways poets and those that pretend so hard to be. Who needs that when you can have this:
"She got the way to move me, Cherry
She got the way to groove me, Cherry baby
She got the way to move me
She got the way to groove me..."
I've KNOWN that Girl. I've driven with that Girl, and I always hope to find her again, to find her in a woman I've never met yet. I've KNOWN 'Hot August Nights", when it is just past midnight and you are beneath the fluorescent lights pumping four dollars of gas into the tank, still sweating from the evening sun, scratches on your skin, and all the moths are all circling above...
After my Mom left I remember my Dad in his V-neck T-shirt putting on Neil Diamond on vinyl and drinking Scotch while I drank Grape soda-- I knew the scratches and pops to each song, and I miss them now when I hear their absence on new copies…
"Song sung blue
Weeping like a willow
Song sung blue
Sleeping on my pillow…"
…I remember my Dad softly bouncing his foot to that, glass in hand, back before the diabetes and the amputation….
But Dylan.
The problem with Bob Dylan is you can always sense him sneering at you; if he tried that act in a bar in Real America he'd get his scarecrow ass handed to him. Neil Diamond, he loved people, he didn't pass judgment or act above it all. You could share a drink with Neil, I know it: he'd tell me his stories, and I'd tell him mine...
All this and Neil, he wrote the song that best sums up my World:
"I've been misunderstood
For all of my life
But what they're sayin',
Girl, just cuts like a knife
"The boy's no good"
Well, I finally found
What I've been looking for
But if they get the chance,
They'll end it for sure
Sure they would
Baby, I've done all I could
It's up to you
Girl, you'll be a woman soon
Please, come take my hand
Girl, you'll be a woman soon
Soon you'll need a man
Soon you'll need a man…."
Neil and me, we've gone on some long rides together, we have secrets that even HE doesn't know. But, on some level, I believe he would understand: I don't think I could bear to have Neil turn his back on me...
"But I got an emptiness deep inside
And I've tried
But it won't let me go
And I'm not a man who likes to swear
But I never cared
For the sound of being alone
"I am"... I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
"I am"... I cried
"I am"... said I
And I am lost and I can't
Even say why
"I am"... I said
"I am"... I cried
"I am"... I said…"
I shake my head. I shake my head every time the radio plays Bob Dylan. I want a singer to sing what is real, not just what he oh-so-cleverly rhymes. I hate 'clever'. Clever is for Dicks. For me the real 'Bob Dylan' is Neil Diamond...
Give me a Neil Diamond song and I will give you a bit of America that is True. "Everybody Must Get Stoned"? I call Bullshit. I call Bullshit on hipsters and tricksters and rappers and sideways poets and those that pretend so hard to be. Who needs that when you can have this:
"She got the way to move me, Cherry
She got the way to groove me, Cherry baby
She got the way to move me
She got the way to groove me..."
I've KNOWN that Girl. I've driven with that Girl, and I always hope to find her again, to find her in a woman I've never met yet. I've KNOWN 'Hot August Nights", when it is just past midnight and you are beneath the fluorescent lights pumping four dollars of gas into the tank, still sweating from the evening sun, scratches on your skin, and all the moths are all circling above...
After my Mom left I remember my Dad in his V-neck T-shirt putting on Neil Diamond on vinyl and drinking Scotch while I drank Grape soda-- I knew the scratches and pops to each song, and I miss them now when I hear their absence on new copies…
"Song sung blue
Weeping like a willow
Song sung blue
Sleeping on my pillow…"
…I remember my Dad softly bouncing his foot to that, glass in hand, back before the diabetes and the amputation….
But Dylan.
The problem with Bob Dylan is you can always sense him sneering at you; if he tried that act in a bar in Real America he'd get his scarecrow ass handed to him. Neil Diamond, he loved people, he didn't pass judgment or act above it all. You could share a drink with Neil, I know it: he'd tell me his stories, and I'd tell him mine...
All this and Neil, he wrote the song that best sums up my World:
"I've been misunderstood
For all of my life
But what they're sayin',
Girl, just cuts like a knife
"The boy's no good"
Well, I finally found
What I've been looking for
But if they get the chance,
They'll end it for sure
Sure they would
Baby, I've done all I could
It's up to you
Girl, you'll be a woman soon
Please, come take my hand
Girl, you'll be a woman soon
Soon you'll need a man
Soon you'll need a man…."
Neil and me, we've gone on some long rides together, we have secrets that even HE doesn't know. But, on some level, I believe he would understand: I don't think I could bear to have Neil turn his back on me...
"But I got an emptiness deep inside
And I've tried
But it won't let me go
And I'm not a man who likes to swear
But I never cared
For the sound of being alone
"I am"... I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
"I am"... I cried
"I am"... said I
And I am lost and I can't
Even say why
"I am"... I said
"I am"... I cried
"I am"... I said…"
I am Laslo.
