The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Young child with dreams
Dreaming each dream on your own
When children play
Seems like you end up alone
Papa says he'd love to be with you
If he had the time
So you turn on the only friend you can find
There in your mind
Shilo, when I was young
I used to call your name
When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came
And we'd play
Young girl with fire
Something said she understood
I wanted to fly
She made me feel like I could
Held my hand out, and I let her take me
Blind as a child
All I saw was the way that she made me smile
She made me smile
Shilo, when I was young
I used to call your name
When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came
And you'd stay
Had a dream, and it filled me with wonder
She had other plans
"Got to go, and I know that you'll understand"
I understand
Shilo, when I was young
I used to call your name
When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came
Come today
Shilo
Shilo
Dreaming each dream on your own
When children play
Seems like you end up alone
Papa says he'd love to be with you
If he had the time
So you turn on the only friend you can find
There in your mind
Shilo, when I was young
I used to call your name
When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came
And we'd play
Young girl with fire
Something said she understood
I wanted to fly
She made me feel like I could
Held my hand out, and I let her take me
Blind as a child
All I saw was the way that she made me smile
She made me smile
Shilo, when I was young
I used to call your name
When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came
And you'd stay
Had a dream, and it filled me with wonder
She had other plans
"Got to go, and I know that you'll understand"
I understand
Shilo, when I was young
I used to call your name
When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came
Come today
Shilo
Shilo
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This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
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@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
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Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
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I too had a friend, but she was not imaginary and she used the name Shiloh as a nickname. We both loved the movie, Journey to Shiloh, and often quoted it to each other. Sadly, I lost her last year to cancer, but I play this song and think on her, as she was my BEST friend... I miss you Barbara Knutson, I hope when I leave here, I will see you again
I think it's pretty obvious what this song is about. Yes, an imaginary friend - "the only friend you can find/there in your mind" - and how he turns to the friend again in later life after having his heart broken by a real woman.
This song breaks my heart. It's the sweetest song for someone who isn't even real, and the line "she had other plans" can bring me to tears. I grew up on Neil Diamond, and this song was such a staple of my youth. My mother used to listen to him all the time, and since she passed on this year, I've returned to him, renewed. First time I listened to the studio version of this in years, and it felt like coming home.
@Artemisian Amen.<br /> Very similar. Grew up hearing ND and my mother passed six years ago. I replay Neils albums now with much joy and sadness. This particular song strikes at my feelings at the same spot...she had other plans.<br /> <br /> Great song.
I wish I could thank this man in person. If it wasn't for this song I would be without a name. My mother said she heard this song just one week before I was born and she knew the meaning of this song and this imaginary friend named Shilo that would come to the rescue of this unloved child was her idealogy of what she wanted from me. I hope I have never let my mom down and will continue to be there for those who need to be helped.
I think Shiloh is about a person who is used to being alone without a nurturing relationship of a father and as a result cant relate to others very well and ends up alone when children play and later as an adult desires a relationship but cannot comment out of fear of being alone, "Got to go and I know that you'll understand" and choses to stay in her peaceful predictable lonely comfort zone alone. That's my thought. Beautiful insightful song with lots of depth!
Shilo is an imaginary friend Neil had a child. Like the dragon in Puff the Magic Dragon, it is left behind with childhood. Yes I know Puff is not a Diamond song. It is also NOT about marijuana as some suggest... but I digress. Neil still rocks. See him live!
Anyone catch in Wedding crasher when the guy was on the stairs admitting that he liked the crazy girl that he also had a imaginary friend, his name was shilo. I wonder if they used that name in reference to this song.
Mnementh was on the right track I think. Shiloh is a Hebrew word that has been translated in different ways. A few include: "His gift" "Oh! May it be." and "He whose it is" . It was used in Genesis and is sometimes interpreted as another name for the Messiah. In the Christian context, this would be another name for Jesus. However, Neil Diamond is Jewish(although his current wife is Christian). Still, the calling of the 'imaginary friend' could be taken as saying a prayer or some such.
I think this makes sense considering the grief he expresses at lost love. It reminds me of a line from Yehuda Amichai's "Love Gifts":
You enabled me to live for a few months without needing a religion
I'm not saying that either was influenced by the other, but that many people who have lost a loved one in one way or another will often turn to religion for comfort. Neil Diamond has spoken from time to time of his spirituality being an influence on his music. I think it's somewhat hard to accept a sane grown man asking for an actual imaginary friend to return. Perhaps the song is asking for a return to the spiritual comfort he had when he was a child, rather than the imaginary friend itself.
He was a lonely child who didn't have any friends, so he decided to find/invent a friend in his own mind to play with, and named him Shiloh. When he got older he fell in love with a "young girl with fire" who made him feel like he could fly, and she made him smile. After a while she decided that she had other plans, and had to go, saying that she knows that he'll understand. In his grief over his broken heart, he calls back his childhood imaginary friend "Shilo when I was young, I used to call your name, when no one else would come, Shilo you always came, come today."<br /> <br /> I think that this is a terribly sad song, because the child, later a man, never really saw reality. Instead of making friends, he made one up. The girl that he fell in love with bought into his imaginations and reinforced them. Then when "he had a dream that filled him with wonder", she abandoned him. Perhaps the dream was his first move into reality that he made after he felt secure in her love, or perhaps he was going deeper into his own mind's dreams, and the girl didn't want to go there with him. But her departure drove him back to his old invention - a friend who will always be there when he called.<br /> <br /> Shilo, or Shiloh, is in the Bible first at Genesis 49:10, as part of a series of prophecies that Jacob pronounced for each of his twelve sons. He said that his fourth son Judah will always have the scepter (a symbol of kingship) until Shiloh comes, to whom all people will be obedient. It turned out in history that most of the kings of Israel descended from Judah, and according to Matthew and Luke's gospel, so did Jesus, which is where the identification of Jesus with Shiloh came from. The name, meaning either "he whose it is" or "he who is to be sent (like a gift)" would be a fitting name for Neil Diamond's song character's steadfast friend.
Neil Diamond split with Bert Berns, proprietor of Bang Records, over this song. Berns thought it was too heavy and introspective and wanted Diamond to continue doing lighter, poppier, happier songs like "Cherry Cherry."
I looked up the name Shilo(h) to see what it means. There were a lot of similar but slightly different meanings. Basically it all boiled down to provider of peace and/or a reference to the messiah (or Jesus depending on if your Jewish or not). Being that Neil Diamond is Jewish (I think) it would seem that it would be more along the lines of provider peace, and that he might have chosen the name in the song for that reference. Maybe he didn't necessarily have the imaginary friend (I don't know for sure, maybe "johnboysv" read this in an interview, in which case I am way off) so much as it's a reference to himself as a lonely kid and finding peace with his faith and religion that in turn helped him through the hard times of solitude. When he grew up he found his stride and didn't lean so much on that aspect. In the end he simply used the story here as a symbolic piece, took a little creative license to make it more acceptable for the masses.
Then again, I'm probably just rambling and finding things that aren't there. In either case, like "johnboysv" says, Neil does rock. I wish I was able to see Hot August Night, but I'm too young, hell I wasn't even born for another 5 years after it happened.
This was the first Neil Diamond song that left an impression on me. It is about having an imaginary friend. I believe Shiloh had religious significance as an oasis, a place of rest.