I’m beginning to think there should be a rule that an artist should not be allowed to sing a song more than twenty or so years after originally writing it. I was flipping through the channels earlier, and came across a KTEH showing of a Neil Diamond concert. I caught him in the middle of butchering “I’m a Believer.” It was bad. Not just your ordinary I’m-60-and-it’s-time-to-reinvent-my-style bad. It was William-Shatner-singing-Lucy-In-the-Sky-With-Diamonds bad. Worse, actually, since I’ve got a 1971 recording that proves Neil Diamond knows how to sing the song. Plus, of course, the 1967 Monkees version (Diamond wrote the song for the Monkees), which is also excellent.

As I continue to watch the concert, I find that many of the songs are not too horribly bad. Still, that’s not exactly a glowing review. Maybe it’s unfair to expect someone to sing the same song every day for thirty years and still sing it the same way. The hundreds of thousands of fans in the audience certainly seem to be enjoying it. Maybe I’m just a curmudgeon who doesn’t like change.