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...
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."
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.
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.
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...
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."
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.
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.