Favourite songs with lyrics you’ve never been able to make out

As a ‘bonus track’ to my recent thread about an adventurous weekend of music, my troubadouring and songwriting guest Buddy Mondlock was talking about list songs in my kitchen (that’s where he was talking about them – there were no list songs in my kitchen, per se) and I said, ‘Like Neil Diamond’s ‘Done Too Soon’?’

‘What?’

‘You’ve never heard it?’

‘No’.

Because it’s on all of Neil’s best-ofs I assumed it must have been a big US hit back in the day but, no, it was only a Billboard #65. Who knew?

Still, it’s a track on one of my all-time favourite records, Neil’s ’12 Greatest Hits’ (a mid 70s vinyl comp). I played it for him, realising – as I always do – that there are several lines I’ve never been able to work out. They sound like random goobledegook – albeit very effectively emotive ones. (Similarly with ‘Holly Holy’, Neil can somehow make near nonsense sound utterly profound through the sheer commitment of his performance and the brilliance of his chord changes/arrangements.)

So I’ve finally got around to looking the lyrics up. I still don’t know who seven of these people are, but at least I know their names. I think he was cheating with ‘E.A. Poe’, though.

“Done Too Soon”

Jesus Christ, Fanny Brice
Wolfie Mozart and Humphrey Bogart
And Genghis Khan
And on to H. G. Wells

Ho Chi Minh, Gunga Din
Henry Luce and John Wilkes Booth
And Alexanders King and Graham Bell

Rama Krishna, Mama Whistler
Patrice Lumumba and Russ Colombo
Karl and Chico Marx
Albert Camus,

E. A. Poe, Henri Rousseau
Sholom Aleichem and Caryl Chessman
Alan Freed and Buster Keaton too

And each one there
Has one thing shared
They have sweated beneath the same sun
Looked up in wonder at the same moon
And wept when it was all done
For bein’ done too soon
For bein’ done too soon
For bein’ done

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