I have no problem admitting that if Neil Diamond offered to sweep me off my feet, I'd be out the door in a minute. Yes, the singer/composer is getting a little long in the tooth but so am I. My devotion comes not just because he still looks pretty darn good and undoubtedly has more money in his checking account than I ever will and hob nobs with the hob nobbers.The man speaks to me. His music reaches places inside me that need to be reached. It's always been like that. Whether he's kicking out Cracklin' Rosie, Holly Holly, or Traveling Salvation Show or taking it slow and contemplative with Play Me or I am..I said, the words and music and mood are exactly what I need.What, for me, it all boils down to is that as an artist, Neil thinks artist thoughts and has artist emotions and I've spend all my writing years wanting to believe the same about myself. I'm going to steal a little text from his latest CD called Home Before Dark that hopefully gives an idea what I'm talking about. He began with an admission: "After all these years recording all these songs, all these albums, it would be fair to assume that I'd become accustomed to the process: that I'd have honed or even mastered the methods required, so much so that by now I should be able to churn out songs in my sleep."That's me. I've had something in the neighborhood of 50 books published so wouldn't you think I could just go to my filing cabinet and pull out plot Q to mesh with hero G and heroine M. This time I'll use setting J and combine conflict B with conflict Y and knock out that sucker in a couple of weeks.Well as any writer will tell you, it's not like that. Each book or novella is like starting all over again. Knowing that none other than Neil Diamond can admit the same thing is a huge relief.His ability to express the writer's process goes beyond cranking out the words. More examples from his text:1. I'm as hungry as I ever was: the emptiness deep inside me aches even more. Making music (or writing) is my life, the one constant I can't live without.2. For all practical purposes, I appeared to be present in all the places I could usually be found but at the same time, not really there at all. It was like diving into the deep end at a pool party; underwater, you can hear the sounds of voices and revelry around you but it's distorted--you're alone. You're in your own womb-like world.3. This isolation caused a deep uneasiness which I carried around with me every day that I spent writing this album. I could only find relief when I was working on a song that truly absorbed me, so that became my first goal: find ideas--musical, lyrical or conceptual--that thrilled me with their possibilities, thus distracting me from my inner fears.
Years ago I said I write because I can't not write. That has never changed.
