Smokey Lady...

Today’s song is “Smokey Lady,” a song written by Neil Diamond and recorded in 1969, on the “Touching You, Touching Me” album. Despite the album’s title, the song “Sweet Caroline” does not appear on the album.

Now, what’s this song all about? The lyrics are here, so you can follow along.

I used to think this song was about someone getting a hooker for an evening (really!) and having it go way wrong. But the more I listened to the song, the less I agreed with myself on that.  Upon further listening and reflection, it seems to me that this song is about the power of infatuation, especially for someone we may not know all that much about, hence the term “smokey lady.”

I go the infatuation route because of lines like “spend your time making full grown men full grown babies,” which I take to mean that this woman, this smokey lady, has had such a powerful pull over the singer that he’s lost all of his adult faculties and become a drooling infant over her.  It’s something that I think most of us can relate to – being so infatuated with someone that we lose ourselves in them.

One other reason I initially thought of the “hooker” reference was that he says, “I been settling/’cause I been getting/what I ain’t had lately,” and my mind just went to sex – involuntarily. But after I thought about it, I realized that it must be that he’s getting something fulfilling from this woman, be it sex or mental stimulation. But whatever it is, it’s making our singer go slightly out of his head for her. As the line “run behind me/run before me/where’re you goin?” points out, she’s running circles around him, and he can’t quite keep up.

So, this could be one of those songs that somewhat defies meaning, but in reality I don’t think you have to dig too too deep to figure out what this song is about. There’s a lot of shouting in this song, too, which makes it a great stress-buster to sing along with! Though I will say from personal experience that it’s hard on one’s throat…

Until next time…