Neil Diamond’s 1970 hit Cracklin’ Rosie, soundtracked a skiing trip for me when I was 16, and remains my favourite from his songbook.
This is another of those songs that lifts my spirits the moment I hear the opening bars, and always has done. Even during the distant days of childhood when I thought he was singing about a “stalwart woman”, long before I found out she was a “store-bought woman” (whatever that is).
And even when it’s on almost constant repeat, as it once was.
A couple of years later, when I was 16, I went on a skiing holiday with two sisters who were friends of mine. Philippa’s boyfriend Andrew drove to Villars with our skiing equipment for a week, with Julia and me wedged into the back of his VW Beetle.
It was a long and cramped journey – I am tall and the girls, both tennis players who had competed at Junior Wimbledon, were tall. They probably still are (I haven’t seen them in years). I remember Julia and I would have to contort ourselves into Kama Sutra-like positions around four sets of skis and poles in order to sleep.
We broke the journey by spending a night in Paris, at the apartment of an old flame of Andrew’s. Soon after we got there the girls and I heard raised voices. It quickly became clear that the three of us were less than welcome, and that she was looking forward to a romantic reunion with him in return for her hospitality.
That meant he had to spend the night sleeping with her, in her bedroom while I shared the flat’s only other bed with Julia and Philippa. Living the dream, I hear you say – except that all I could think about was my paralysing fear of “accidentally” brushing up against the girls, with whom I had never had any kind of romantic entanglement, and all I could feel was the tension coursing through Philippa at every murmur through the wall to the other bedroom.
Anyway, what has any of this got to do with Neil Diamond? Well, the only music we had on the entire 24-hour journey was two of the boyfriend’s eight-track cartridges – remember them? One of them was called Tales From Topographic Oceans, a seemingly endless and unlistenable double or triple album by Yes, a group I cannot abide. The other was Hot August Night, a live album by Neil Diamond.
I had long since dismissed Neil Diamond in my Glam-filled mind as a middle-aged crooner, conveniently forgetting that when I was 12 I loved this song. I still love it. It’s easily my favourite Neil Diamond song, and it’s one of my favourite songs of all time, by anyone. I once got to interview him – one of the few subjects I’ve asked to autograph an album – and a few years back I was lucky enough to see the now-retired Neil Diamond live at The Roundhouse.
Play it now… play it now!