Neil Diamond - On the Way to the Sky
#617
By Bobby Bognar
November 6 1981
Neil Diamond
On the Way To The Sky
Genre: Great-Grandma Pop?
Allen’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Bobby’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Highlight:
Be Mine Tonight
Lowlight: The lyrics
I never much got into Neil Diamond.
While I’m certain I MUST have heard some of his songs earlier, the earliest I remember hearing his name was in 1984 when I was a freshman in high school. My drama teacher, Mrs. Baugher, was a huge ND fan, and had a life-sized poster of him in the classroom.
The first time I was able to identify a Neil Diamond song was “Heartlight,” which was written for the movie E.T., but didn’t make the cut and was released as a single. I later learned that he had written “I’m A Believer” for the Monkees, and of course started singing “Sweet Caroline” at ball games after “Beautiful Girls” came out.
All of this is just to say that I was completely unaware of any of these songs before receiving this album to review.
“Yesterday’s Songs” opens the album, and it seems to have been engineered in a laboratory to be peak “breezy.” Pleasant to listen to, and over in less than three minutes, I’m not offended,but I’m certainly not buzzing with excitement. I’ve never before paid any attention to Diamond’s voice, and it is certainly solid, though I can’t imagine falling in love with him because of it.
A little internet buzzing shows that Neil was a big sex symbol at the time. For what it’s worth, I don’t see it. This was a year when Van Halen put out “Fair Warning,” the Police had “Ghost In The Machine,” and Phil Collins put out his massive hit “Face Value.” There were lots of hot musicians out there with whom he had to compete. It’s hard to see where Capital Records thought this album would fit into the pop landscape. Somehow, though, “Yesterday’s Songs” hit #11 on the charts.
Song after song seems to have been pulled from a gauzy, late night love scene from “Moonlighting.” All love songs, all quietly mid-tempoing all over the place.
“Only You,” the fourth track on the album lifts up the tempo with a “Love Boat” groove (and what sounds like the only live piano on the recording), and on my third listen through the album, I start feeling like any line from any of the songs on this album could be cut and pasted into any other. Lots of mentions of “you,” “me,” and “love.” There are no distinct characters (the one exception being “The Drifter,” where ND describes himself as “the dreamer who climbed the mountain and saw forever across the ocean,” which seems like a superpower deserving of more excitement than we get to hear). As a guy who writes average lyrics, but appreciates appreciates great ones, the blame rests squarely on the artist’s shoulders, as he has songwriting credits on all but one tune.
“Be Mine Tonight” is the most up-tempo track on the album, and because of that, stands out a little from the rest of the pack, but suffers from the same generic sentiments of the other tunes.
OTWTTS gets its Diamond-est with “Rainy Day Song,” where we are told he knew we “never believed in rainbows.” Whether this is lazy or bad is up to the listener, I suppose, but I choose to believe the former. Remember Murph And The Magic Tones? Probably not, but I guarantee that “Rainy Day Song” was on their set list.
Would you like to know what Guitar Heaven is? Me, too! Unfortunately, track 10, “Guitar Heaven” shows us nothing of that dream world. Instead it has a nice acoustic lead that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Porter Waggoner record, but it’s the sonic equivalent of calling a menu item “Prime Rib” and serving up a Hot Pocket: It tastes good, sure, but you’re sure gonna be disappointed.
Mrs. Baugher cast Matt Mitchell as the lead in “Barnum” in my senior year, even though I OBVIOUSLY deserved the part, so I am at least a bit comforted by the proof that she had sketchy taste way back then.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5lOAyD9C2rOYOxqPwVf6ZJ?si=YYWwiuRDQeuJ1ZVJ74kWpgq
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