Five minutes into the movie and it felt like this was more of a home movie than a Hollywood movie....and after over sixty years of movie fare....that is an unusual feat....such was the everyman character that Hugh Jackman gave to his character Mike Sardini. Maybe it was the Kentucky Fried on the table....and the mashed potatoes missing from the bag....or maybe it was the family mental health issues....or the alcohol....or maybe it was just me singing in the car for more than a half century....with Solitary Man the only song that I can....after many years....pick up a dusty guitar and play....that made this new film....Song Sung Blue....so real and so personal?
Just a little bit of surround sound on the film....Mike and Clair....(this is more than based on a true story)....are a little bit better than pretty good singer celebrity impersonators....and Mike picked a good one....Neil Diamond....whose 1972 Hot August Night super double-album has been with me since it came out in December of that year....two months after I got out of the army.
The movie is terrific....but I want to focus here on Neil Diamond....raised Jewish....but his songs....many of them....are like they were composed by a boy raised in the Southern Baptist Convention....some have a different connotation.
It's an old habit that I haven't picked up on in thirty years....sending a specific Christian book or a good Study Bible to a celebrity. I would do this with our son....to show him where our hearts and our minds should always be. So I would like to send something to Neil Diamond. Maybe I will. What would I pick....as if he would ever get it anyway? I sent a letter to Elvis in about 1957....and received a very nice response from Colonel Tom Parker's....secretary.
Would I send something of a Jewish nature....a testimony perhaps of a messianic Jew....or maybe a prophecy book....not some wild selection that sells big....but maybe an easy to read commentary on Jeremiah? Hey....it is in the effort and the trusting that God honors even our weakest efforts. You see I like Neil Diamond's music....very much....but whether it is with a singer or an actor or an athlete or anyone....when the music stops or the movie ends....I think about the man or the woman's soul! I am never without that consciousness. We ate dinner tonight after the movie....and I had on my mind the very pleasant young waitress....does she know our Savior? All I could do was leave a card with this website with the tip. Is there anything else more important or more fulfilling in this life than telling someone.....even if it is the weakest attempt....about the One whose glory fills the universe....and offers life everlasting to all who will but humbly go to Him and ask of it!
OK....I'm getting long-winded. I just want make a couple more comments on Neil Diamond's lyrics as they point to God. Have you noticed by any chance that he often throws the word Lord in there? He had it pretty close to right with Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show. This song is not ridiculing fundamentalist revival tent meetings. There are better ways....and the theology is not always correct....but I thank God for all of those past centuries where an itinerant preacher would ride till he was sore in the saddle....just to meet with people....and tell them the gospel as best as he could! I thank God for the simplicity of the gospel to simple people such as I am! I have one rather major concern....as in Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show....Mr. Diamond uses the word....Hallelujah....quite prominently....but does he know that that word means....praise the LORD....or....praise Yah....as in Yahweh....an interpretation that is only the best that man can come up with....but its meaning if not total accuracy....should be enough....to silence a believer....because of the holiness of the One it is addressing!
Title....Exodus 3:14....ESV....an odd and disconcerting similarity to....considering Neil Diamond's heritage....I Am....I Said.
