Latinos give new life to Neil Diamond anthem
Amid the mariachi music, socially conscious corridos and civil rights hymns at last week’s immigration-rights rallies, a surprising voice arose - a strong Jewish baritone usually favored by middle-aged women and retro-hip college kids. It was Neil Diamond, singing his own exodus anthem: “America,” from the pop elder statesman’s 1980 remake of America’s first talkie, “The Jazz Singer.”…. The song is built like a footpath up a monument, the melody swooping downward to rise up again, its key changes and call-and-response elements (“They’re coming to America!” “Today!”) forcing the tension. Rooted in the Yiddish music of Diamond’s Brooklyn youth, the song moves on to Broadway and the Borscht Belt and lands on the edge of disco - a border-crossing trek unto itself. This intentional hugeness, this insistence on being an anthem, makes “America” easy to mock but also impossible to resist.
It was 1980, and I was a sophomore in college when Neil Diamond’s “Jazz SInger” (the movie and the album) was released. At the time, I was fascinated by the way the lyrics of “Coming to America” captured the struggle of immigrants trying to adjust and adapt to a new culture and a new way of life. ‘Course, that WAS a long time ago, eh? Who says history isn’t cyclical?
Of course, we all know that Neil Diamond is about as unhip as they come, and it seems ironic that it wasn’t until 26 years later that “Coming to America” became an anthem for Latino immigrants. Nonetheless, the message of the lyrics still apply, because from Day One, this country has been built and fueled by the labors of immigrants and descendants of immigrants- because (except for Native Americans) that’s what all of us are.
Of course, using Diamond’s song as an anthem has some Latino leaders scratching their heads, and who can blame them? It’s only taken 26 years for this to happen, and Neil Diamond isn’t exactly Ricky Martin.
Diamond’s “America,” on the other hand, raised hackles. One organizer quickly dismissed the “knuckleheads” who played the song at City Hall; another hung up when pushed on the subject. It’s not surprising that those in charge prefer to focus on clear expressions of Latino pride, like the hundreds of mariachi players participating in last Monday’s downtown march.
What about “America” makes certain people uncomfortable, yet also leads it to surface again and again? One factor, of course, is its English-language origin; though far less ubiquitous, it’s akin to the rallies’ ever more present American flags. “If you grew up in the U.S., this is a song you know,” Salas said, articulating the song’s bridge-building usefulness and its limitations. “Immigrants today don’t really know it.” Yet the language barrier doesn’t defeat “America’s” irresistible hokeyness.
For his part, the 65-year-old Vegas veteran is delighted at the new interest in his 26-year-old song. “That’s what it’s there for,” he said by phone from an undisclosed vacation hideaway. “That song tells the immigrant story. It was written for my grandparents and the immigrants who came over in the late 1800s, the Irish, Jews and Italians. But it’s the song for the modern-day Latino coming as well.”
Diamond describes its sound as sadness “counterbalanced with joy,” and its dynamic and melodic drive is, indeed, satisfyingly overwhelming. The song’s unusual history only intensifies its effect. Its association with “The Jazz Singer,” a cinematic flop with a platinum-selling soundtrack, raises the specter of American entertainment’s most controversial border crossing - blackface minstrelsy. Al Jolson famously appeared “corked up” in the 1927 original.
Diamond made no such move in 1980, and he’s less guilty of the rock era’s version of minstrelsy than several of his peers (a certain skinny, lip-licking Englishman, for example). Yet by taking on the role once inhabited by Jolson, Diamond highlighted all of pop’s complex existence on the boundaries of race and taste.
“America” lifted itself out of the film’s context to become its own phenomenon. It’s appeared on many Diamond compilations and is so popular with his fans that Diamond often opens and closes his shows with it. Schoolteachers across the country use it in their curriculum on immigration. Michael Dukakis, the son of Greek immigrants, adopted it as a theme during his ill-fated 1988 campaign against George H.W. Bush. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the radio conglomerate Clear Channel added it to a list of “lyrically questionable” (and temporarily banned) songs, because it mentioned immigrants entering the U.S. on planes.
It was a much different world in 1980, but I suppose some things just take longer to gain a foothold in the public consciousness. If “Coming to America” gets a few more Anglos to thinking about the immigration issues (and the fact that virtually all of us are immigrants or their descendants), so much the better. Sometimes a message can be found in the most unusual and unexpected places. Who would have thought that a glorified lounge lizard would evenutally fire the net shop in our current immigration debate?
Yes, of course, I realize that this debate is about ILLEGAL immigration, but it is at it’s base about immigration in general. If “Coming to America” can get a few more angry Anglos thinking about where we all came from, perhaps the heated rhetoric might cool a few degrees. If not, at least we can all marvel at how it took 26 years for Neil Diamond to become hip again.
