Jeremy Berg

“Every pastor should carry a harmonica,” the woman said to me after my show Monday. I don’t know about that, but perhaps every pastor should have a side-hustle that’s a healthy escape from the heavier tasks of ministry, another way to share the love and joy of Christ. Mine happens to include wearing a harmonica rack around my neck.

I just performed my second “Diamond Cat” concert in three weeks, a celebration of the hits of Neil Diamond and Cat Stevens (aka Yusuf Islam). What fun it’s been putting this show together over the past many months. I have a few more dates coming up this spring for this particular show. For locals, I’ll be performing this show at Lake Minnetonka Shores in Spring Park on March 20 at 2:30 PM.

Also mark your calendars for Saturday, April 18 where me, my kids and some friends will be playing at the Spring Fling for the second year in a row at the Gillespie Center. This fundraiser brought out a few hundred people last year for a fun night of food and music.

Back to my Diamond Cat show in Bloomington earlier this week. I covered the following 19 songs in my 70 minute show. Which are your favorites? Who is your preference, Cat or Neil?

• Solitary Man – Diamond
• Cracklin’ Roșie – Diamond
• Play Me – Diamond
• Moonshadow – Cat
• Here Comes My Baby – Cat
• Am I Said – Diamond
• I’m A Believer – Diamond
• The Wind – Cat
• Father and Son – Cat
• You Got To Me – Diamond
• Song Sung Blue – Diamond
• Wild World – Cat
• If You Want to Sing Out – Cat
• Thank the Lord for the Night Time – Diamond
• The First Cut is the Deepest – Cat
• Peace Train – Cat
• Brother Love’s Travelin’ Salvation Show – Diamond
• Sweet Caroline – Diamond
• Morning Has Broken – Cat

Some favorite moments in the show include performing “Play Me” with the beautiful words that could be a prayer inviting Jesus to be the “sun of righteousness” (Mal. 4:2) and “bright morning sun” (Rev. 22:16) to lead us on the Thorned and Narrow Path, taking up our cross and crown of thorns and trusting God to be that other “grace that would save me”:

And so it was that I came to travel
Upon a road that was thorned and narrow
Another place, another grace, would save me
You are the sun, I am the moon
You are the words, I am the tune, play me

Jesus is the Word of God in flesh, my life is a song, so may I be an instrument in his hands. (I’ve written about this theme here.)

Then I draw attention to Neil’s personal, autobiographical song, “I Am, I Said,” and the line that every soul can relate to–another prayer from the heart to fill that deep emptiness inside that leaves us feeling lonely:

I got an emptiness deep inside,
and I’ve tried but it won’t let me go.
And I’m not a man who likes to swear,
but I never cared for the sound of being alone.

Nick Fradiani portrayed Neil Diamond on Broadway a few years back in NYC, and this cover of “I Am…I Said” shows the power and purity of this song by itself with no lights, sequins shirt, lasers or backing band.

Cat Stevens seems to me the more spiritual of the two, and he left music altogether for over 30 years after converting to Islam in the mid-70s. I find his story and faith journey full of beauty, honesty, and integrity. He’s committed himself to humanitarian work and education for decades, and only returned to music in the early 2000s when I came to see his music did not conflict with his faith, but was an expression of it. (Tragic it took him that long to reach that conclusion!)

My two favorite Cat songs to perform are the short, spiritual “The Wind” which has a beautiful and intoxicating little guitar riff with the words,

I listen to the wind
To the wind of my soul
Where I’ll end up well I think,
Only God really knows

In this song, he lets his “music take [him] where [his] heart wants to go; declares he’s “sat upon the setting sun” and “swam upon the devil’s lake” and vows to never make that mistake again. It’s a gem. Here’s a great live version in his prime, blistering through it in just 1:44, leaving you wanting more.

Then his angsty song, “Father and Son,” features a conversation between a father who wants to shower his young adult son with advice, and a son who is desperate for his father to hear him and respect his own journey. I use a difference voice for these contrasting verses, and I’m almost crying when I sing:

How can I try to explain? ’cause when I do he turns away again
It’s always been the same, same old story
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen
Now there’s a way, and I know that I have to go away
I know I have to go

Every father in the audience is also a son, and most of can relate to this tension between every father and son. It’s hard to release our sons to their fate and watch them make choices we don’t agree with or understand, and it’s also hard to leave the nest and wise to listen to the wisdom of our fathers.

Then toward the end of the show, I talk about our nation’s great social challenges in the 60s and the songs that helped lead us through those tumultuous times. We find ourselves again in need of songs of peace and justice today, and so I break into a slow version of Cat’s “Peace Train” as an anthem for this moment. I think every heart beats in agreement, no matter one’s politics, when I slow down on the final verse and sing:

Now I’ve been cryin’ lately,
thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating,
why can’t we live in bliss?
Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again

So, are we on a crazy train heading inevitably toward a cliff? Or will we get on the Peace Train that can take this country back in the right direction?

As you would expect, a Neil Diamond show has to end with a rip-roaring version of “Sweet Caroline” with all the appropriate “bum, bum, bums” and enthusiastic “So good, so good, so goods!” But as you may not know, most musicians and real fans of Neil Diamond enjoy this part of the show LEAST. This classic song is, well, overplayed. It’s tragic that a legendary singer-songwriter with such a deep catalogue of beautiful songs has become known only for this one. But I do my best to smile and get through the song, because it’s still a good song that everyone can’t help but sing along to with a smile.

But as a pastor, I follow it up with a spiritual benediction, playing a soft version of Cat’s cover of the exceptionally beautiful hymn, “Morning Has Broken.” Go listen to it if you haven’t, and then imagine my son, Peter, playing the piano part with me in worship services. It’s powerful but way less fun without Peter.

Such a blessing to go about bringing smiles to so many in this way. I enjoy meeting and mingling with the audience afterwards, telling them about my “day job” as a pastor, my musical kids, my musical influences. And while these senior living communities have many other entertainers gracing their stage throughout the year, I like to think I am one of the only Roaming Reverends who comes with a harmonica around his neck and the good news of Jesus leaking out of his songs. Or, in the words of the “Jewish Elvis”:

“You are the sun,

I am the moon,

You are the words,

I am the tune, PLAY ME.”