Beautiful Funeral Song: “Morningside” by Neil Diamond

Credit: quercus-furniture.co.uk

In 1972, Neil Diamond released a very touching song he wrote called “Morningside” on his album, Moods. “Morningside” was heavily inspired by Neil Diamond’s own reflections about his grandparents’ deaths. In his own words, “Morningside is a very sad song. It’s a song of dying alone, something that I’ve been aware of for a long time. I was struck by it when my grandparents passed away – that they did die alone – that they weren’t with their children when they died. And a year and a half ago when I was in London for the first time, I passed a shop and saw this beautiful table in the window. It was carved by hand and for some reason the two things came together and the song started then.”

We cannot help but reflect about how heart wrenching it must have been for the elderly man when he died “And no one cried/They simply turned away.”

Neil Diamond’s smooth yet gravelly voice, along with the slowed-down tempo of the music, allows listeners to pay careful attention to his meaningful lyrics. We cannot help but reflect about how heart wrenching it must have been for the elderly man when he died, “And no one cried/They simply turned away.” After singing these lyrics solemnly, Diamond turns his attention to the gift that the elderly man left in the event of his death. Although the man died alone, “He left a table made of nails and pride/And with his hands,/He carved these words inside/’For my children’.” He hoped that, even though his children were absent when he died, this handcrafted table would serve as a beautiful reminder of how much he loved them.

“Wash away the sadness” represents the journey of learning important life lessons in times of loss and grief.

As the narrator in the song, Diamond shares his own reflections about the man’s fate. The contrast between day and night reflects his grief process. He acknowledges his different emotional reactions by saying, “Morning light/Morning bright/I spent the night/With dreams that make you weep/Morning time/Wash away the sadness/From these eyes of mine/For I recall the words an old man signed/’For my children’.” “Wash away the sadness” represents the journey of learning important life lessons in times of loss and grief.

Neil Diamond
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The somber, reflective nature of the lyrics, which are so beautifully evoked in Diamond’s singing, makes it a wonderful choice to be played at a funeral. Listening to “Morningside” will allow mourners, in a collective setting, to reflect on the statuses of their relationships with their loved ones, especially their aging parents. Even if people cannot be with a loved one when he or she dies, they can take comfort in knowing that the dying person will still forgive and love them, and possibly leave something for them to be remembered by for years to come.

…Morningside
An old man died
And no one cried
He surely died alone
And truth is sad
For not a child would claim the gift he had
The words he carved became his epitaph
‘For my children’

Read the entire lyrics here.