Love on the Rocks – Neil Diamond – 1980

I don’t count Neil Diamond amongst my favourite artists, and I don’t even own any of his music. He has recorded songs that are far more popular than this one, but Love on the Rocks is the one I think of above all others, and it’s a song that I have carried with me for many years.

When I was in my early teens my dad often performed Love on the Rocks during his local gigs in and around Sydney, so it was a number I heard quite regularly and was very familiar with, even though the lyrics meant nothing to me at thirteen.

When I was nineteen and living in Malta I recorded a thirty minute mock radio broadcast onto cassette to send to the guy who is now my brother-in-law. Why? Well… I did lots of stupid shit like that at nineteen. It was a compilation of songs and lighthearted news items. I scripted the entire thing and recorded it in a single take one sunny Maltese day in 1995. Towards the end of the broadcast I stuck on my dad’s backing track for Love on the Rocks and as DJ Rollin’ Brian Ross, I cranked out the vocals myself. Thankfully, it’s the only known recording out there of me singing.

Now that I’m a little older it’s still a great song, but now the words mean a little more too.