For some time now, The Guardian newspaper has run a column called Honest Playlist where a guest is asked a series of questions about music. Here’s Simply Mick’s Honest Playlist. It’s great fun and obviously I play along, not always, it has to be said, coming up with the same answers. The one question that always intrigues me is: The song I inexplicably know every lyric to. Today, it happened again.
Remembering lyrics is not one of my strong points, quite possibly because I listen to so many of them, but sometimes the lyrics stick, in this case for many years. In tonight’s case, 54 of them.
Even as a little ‘un, I liked Neil Diamond. In his early years, he travelled a line between folk and pop, before later tumbling disappointingly into Vegas-type cabaret. From the late sixties to the early seventies, I OD’d on his music.
In 1971, he made an album called Stones, which was mainly (superb) covers but included three and a bit of his own songs. The title track was one of them and almost from the outset I knew all the words. Tonight, I found myself singing along with it and, inexplicably, I knew all the words.
54 years have not passed since I last heard the song, but I’ll bet it’s at least 30, maybe longer ago than that. I sang along and the words came along at the start of every line. It felt like I had no clue what was coming and suddenly I was belting out: “Lordy child a good days comin’, And I’ll be there to let the sun in, And bein’ lost is worth the comin’ home.” How can this be?
I could not tell you a single thing about what I was doing in 1971, which was music’s finest year, but something stuck. Lodged deep in the back of what’s left of my brain was a song by Neil Diamond which only his big fans will know. It’s never on the radio stations I listen to but when it started off, there I am knowing every word, every chord, the bass line. It’s a miracle.
What’s the song you inexplicably know every lyric to?
