Neil Diamond

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5dQ-uB5CK4

I'm with Trip....

(Ruth and Laura are in New York about to scatter his ashes...)

“Exactly. He never followed trends, he wasn't interested in festivals, didn't buy music magazines, didn't learn lyrics, didn't play music at loud volume on Friday nights, or make me compilation tapes. And he never danced. Thank god. In fact, he was only ever passionate about one thing to do with music in his entire life.”

“I must have missed that, what was it?”

“He loved Neil bloody Diamond. He knew all the lyrics, especially the really bad ones. 'No-one heard at all, not even the chair.' 'He ain't heavy he's my brother' was the best cover version ever, unless it was 'Midnight bloody Train to Georgia', which he took to playing when he was lying on the sofa after chemo. He even dragged me to see him once.”

“You went to see Neil Diamond?” Laura choked on her champagne.

“Yep, at some football ground or other. The old man croaked his way through his back catalogue whilst the middle aged women of England wet their gussets. Come the encore, Trip was standing on his seat roaring through the chorus of 'Cracklin’ Rosie' without a hint of irony or sense of his own ridiculousness. I pretended I wasn’t with him. Do you know, if anyone ever dismissed the sainted Neil's talents, he'd ask 'Tell me, who wrote 'I'm a Believer'?' Or sometimes he'd change it to 'Red Red Wine'.”

“That just shows his lack of cool - the fact he thought that was a winning argument.”

“Yeah, and of course when Pulp Fiction came out he could add 'Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon'. Which, to be fair, did actually dumbfound a few critics.”

“Idiot.” Laura giggled fondly.