Diamond Girl

I was on the phone with my sister earlier today. I asked her if she wanted to go to a Todd Rundgren / Daryl Hall concert with me to which she replied “I thought Daryl passed away.” I nearly shit my pants. Thx to Google-at-your-fingertips I was relieved to know that Daryl is alive and well. Phew.  

Then a subsequent text from her: Sry it was “Seals.” No first name. Just Seals… I gathered that would be Jim Seals — 1/2 of Seals & Crofts the 1970s soft rock duo. First cousin of Bread. But not quite as soft as bread.

Jim Seals passed away in June. 

It wasn’t like I was comforted that it was Dan Seals and not Daryl who passed it’s just that well — Daryl! I’m sooo not ready. 

Anyway, if u showed me a random picture of Jim Seals and Dash Crofts from back in the 70s I prolly wouldn’t know who they were. There’s only one indelible image I have of them in my brain — and that’s the one on the cover of a 1973 vinyl album which I purchased because of the title track - “Diamond Girl.” This one:

I loved “Diamond Girl.” What’s not to love? Doesn’t it make you smile? Did you have that vinyl album too?

Curious, I Googled the cause of Jim’s death. I don’t know why I did that. What does it matter why somebody passes away? Gone is gone. Maybe it makes us feel luckier to be alive. I dunno. It was cancer. At 61. Fuck cancer. (When cancer takes a personal friend you don’t need the details. The unfathomable reality is enough. )

But for some reason after all these years…(decades) I felt the compulsion to put a face on the man who co-wrote and sang “Diamond Girl, you sure do shine!” I wanted to see him as he was 40 years later. He hadn’t changed much. Same Cap. Facial fuzz…in alignment with the same feels I get from “Diamond Girl” whenever I hear it.

“DG” takes me back to a time I imagined I could be the diamond girl Seals & Crofts were singing about. That’s what songs are supposed to do. Make you feel like they’re about you. Or that you could have written those lyrics for someone else. We have some kind of privileged ‘territorialism’ to a song because of how we personalize it. We can’t imagine anyone else has the same connection.

When you learn that the creator of the song is gone, they take a piece of you with them. But thing is…the song remains. It never goes away. I’m sitting in my yard listening to it right now. I’ve entered an emotional time machine. “It’s about you that I am.”

Why did it take me so long to hear of Jim Seals’ passing? Did you? He’s beloved yes, but perhaps not as iconic as Bowie or John Prine both of whom upon their departures made it onto many-a-front page. 

But Jim Seals wrote “Diamond Girl” and that’s enough for me. He also penned “Summer Breeze” and “We May Never Pass This Way Again.” — so his departure from the world deserves a pause and a moment of gratitude for his gift to us.

Thanks for your music, Jim seals. 

“Life, so they say, is but a game and they’d let it slip away.”

Take care of yourself, Daryl! 

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