The answer to the title above is, Oh yes!

I have had the opportunity and the pleasure of hearing Neil Diamond live twice in my life, once when I was in my 20s, and once again in my 60s, and God’s honest truth, there was no difference in what I heard from both concerts, except he had a lot more hits in my 60s than my 20s, but the songs from my 20s still sounded just as great as he sung them in my 60s.

In those same 1980s I began reading Richard Bach’s book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, to our (Mrs. Beverly Taylor and my) fourth graders at Fletcher School, and later taught the same book, with a self-prepared Teacher’s Guide while teaching sixth graders (with partners Gina Hess and Ruth Kriese) at Jefferson School. It was/is an amazing book with no human characters, only seagulls. One gull, in particular, didn’t want to be an ordinary seagull, one who only flies to seek and obtain food, but he wanted to go beyond just flying to exist, he wanted to exceed flight, go beyond the lines of regular flight. He wanted to go outside the box and soar faster and beyond what was considered just normal flight. He even risked being made an outcast from his flock, to exceed where he had not been and then exceed that, etc., etc., etc. They even made a movie based as closely as I have ever seen to the book, again with no human characters, just seagulls, and as all good movies contain, had a great soundtrack to accompany the dialogue and amazing film of the freedom, determination, speed, grace, and excitement, that one outcast seagull achieved. He risked the expense of ridicule, disownment, and scorn. As, not so hard to believe, the soundtrack from Jonathan Livingston Seagull was written and performed by Neil Diamond. His notes, instrumentational combinations, and his words perfectly captured the amazing story of JLS. YouTube it and read the book too. You won’t be disappointed, and it will make a great teaching tool with your children, grandchildren, students, teams, employees, anyone you want to inspire to think and go outside the box and to not accept mediocrity, but soar as high as you can go, and then soar higher the day after that.

As you can deduce, many of the lyrics of Neil Diamond’s songs have meaning to them, meaning that can be used as a guide through certain paths, over certain roads, up and down some of the many hills we travel in our lives. Even the song which might be the cornerstone of the musical, “A Beautiful Noise,” the stage show dubbed the story of Neil Diamond, has a story/lesson we can learn to use as we navigate this life we live. The song is called, “I am I said,” with one set of lyrics singing, “Did you ever read about a frog who dreamed of being a king, then became one, “Except for names and a few other changes, if you talk about me, the story’s the same one.”

I venture a guess that, at one time or another, all of us have looked at ourselves in the mirror, or looked inside ourselves, and found something we didn’t like about what we saw or thought, and wished to ourselves that we could be better somehow, or had something different or more, or have wished our lives could be different in some ways. Then, if things might have changed and “better things” did come to us, we often find out we were better off the way were in the first place, as with “better things” came more complications, confusion, and conflict. In the lyrics of Neil Diamond’s, “I am, I said,” he was talking about himself, but we all can take lessons from them too, as they most definitely can apply to us.

Another song Diamond wrote and performed was titled, “I’ve Been This Way Before,” and somewhere, maybe in many places in the lyrics, we can (I know I do) find words that describe a part of us and our personalities. The full lyrics of that song are:

“I’ve seen the light

And I’ve seen the flame

And I’ve been this way before

And I’m sure to be this way again

For I’ve been refused

And I’ve been regained

And I’ve seen your eyes before

And I’m sure to see your eyes again

Once again

For I’ve been released

And I’ve been regained

And I’ve sung my song before

And I’m sure to sing my song again

Once again

Some people got to laugh

Some people got to cry

Some people, they got to make it through

And never wondering why

Some people got to sing

Some people got to sigh

Some people (some people), they never see the light

Until the day they die

But I’ve been released

And I’ve been regained

And I’ve been this way before

And I’m sure to be this way again

Once more time again

Just once again

One more time for us

Just one last time”

There are times in our lives, situations in our lives where we’ve done positive things, many times more than once, and we’ve done some things that haven’t been the best things we’ve done, and we’ve done them more than once and probably will do them again. Sometimes, we try to figure out the “whys” in our lives, be they good or bad, and there are many ways we can deal with trying to understand and find the answers we seek, to questions we have about things that happen in our lives. Because we have our own way dealing with so many things we ponder in life, we react differently to these things and I think Neil Diamond was trying to let us know that things will, and do, happen that may elate us, and bring us down, and we can react, by laughing, crying, singing, sighing, even ignoring, (though that’s a signal to seek assistance from someone who might be able to help us work through some of our confusion, depression, or despair, because we may have been this way before and quite possibly, and probably, we’ll be this way again.) Many don’t know that Neil Diamond had some bumps in his road to success, some relationship-wise, some physical, some which caused depression, some which made him seek professional help, and which motivated him to share with others, the importance of not facing things alone, but rather seeking the help of others whenever you reach a place where you feel boxed in, or in despair. He used his gift of music in just that way, telling the audience on stage, in his story titled, “A Beautiful Noise.” Diamond’s beautiful noises (his music and lyrics) were motivating, soothing, often therapeutic, and more often than not, were beneficial lessons to many young people who were part of English/Language Arts at Fletcher and Jefferson Schools in the 70s, 80,s, 90s and early 00s, the years we taught the book. May those of you who weren’t in those classes, let his words not just be story lessons of the fictional Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and the kids who heard his story. Let them be a lesson to everyone of any and all ages.