Album Review: "Melody Road" - Neil Diamond

"Melody Road": A.  When Neil Diamond and his wife of twenty-five years, Marcia Murphey, ended their marriage in 1995, the settlement resulted in the singer shelling out $150 million in alimony.  That unhappy occurrence ranks as the fourth most expensive American celebrity divorce in history, behind only those of Michael Jordan, Arnold Swarzenegger and Mel Gibson.  Many of Diamond's fans rightfully wondered if he would ever tie the knot again -- Murphey was his second wife -- and whether the experience might sour him on love to the point where it would adversely affect his songwriting.  Those questions were finally answered in 2012, when Diamond married production assistant Katie McNeil, twenty-nine years his junior, and a few weeks ago, when he released Melody Road.  Apparently love and marriage agree with the crooner, as this new album is one of his best.

Although the sequencing of tracks might lead the listener to conclude that Melody Road is not a concept album, there is no denying that the common threads of love, hope and appreciation permeate throughout.  Two of my favorites are third person tales of romantic pairs.  Seongah And Jimmy tells the story of two kids, a Korean girl and a Long Island guy, meeting and falling in love in Brooklyn.  They learn about each other's native culture at the same time they are getting to know one another as a partner.  Love has more than one language. 

He says "I love you," she knows he means it,

She says "Sarang-hae," he knows she means it too. 

 

Similarly, Sunny Disposition  is a story of a twosome's beginnings.  Just as in Seongah And Jimmy, at first blush one would not pick the two individuals to have a love connection.  He "had a cloud that never went away," while she, as the song's title says, "had a sunny disposition."  Made for each other?  Hardly, until he saw the light and came around to her way of thinking.

 

The female saves the day once again in Something Blue. This tune presents the same original predicament as Sunny Disposition, although it is sung from a first person perspective.  The male singer was in the dumps until she pulled him out of it.  Now he expresses his gratitude. 

 

You showed me what a little bit of love can do…

Took me to a place I never knew.

Goodbye to my little bit of something blue. 

 

As I alluded to above (and as I also alluded to in my March 28, 2012 review of the Bruce Springsteen album Wrecking Ball), a true concept album should have a definite logic to the pattern of its track sequence.  The sequencing of Melody Road throws a curve ball at us by placing two songs, In Better Days and especially Nothing But A Heartache, in the middle of the playlist.  Both of those numbers should, rightfully, be at the beginning of the album, because they point to a previous relationship, not the one that has inspired most of the rest of the album.  From the latter, directed to his new love and clearly referencing a lost love: 

 

Was a one way conversation

I never got the invitation

the sharpness of her words deceiving

and I couldn't stop the bleeding.

 

Nothing But A Heartache also contains the following great lyrics: 

 

Lord I tried to be forgiving

but getting by don't mean you're living. 

 

I also love this metaphor from the same song: 

 

… on that highway going nowhere

was an exit overdue. 

 

A mystery surrounding the negative tone of Nothing But A Heartache is that Diamond has publicly admitted that the dissolution of his long marriage to Murphey was almost entirely his fault.  Perhaps the song is not a slam against Murphey but some other failed love interest.  Equally likely is that the song recollects a fictitious flame. 

 

In Better Days is sung to his ex, bemoaning the fact that they were happiest when they "didn't have a dime between us."  The relationship was unable to find a balance between gleam of success and the grind of simplicity.

 

There are many other worthy songs on this new album.  Poignant lyrics prevail.  The Art Of Love, classic Diamond and for my money the best song on the album, is simply beautiful and meaningful. 

 

… love's not what you have

but what you give,

and the art of love is

who you share it with. 

 

The orchestration throughout the collection is superior, including the ethereal keyboards and chimes in (OOO) Do I Wanna Be Yours, and the ragtime brass instruments in Marry Me Now.  Most importantly, Diamond's voice sounds like he's in mid-career form.  To have a performer gifted with his song-writing ability and his vocal talent is certainly a rarity.  Even the great Tony Bennett does not write his own music.