From HEADED FOR THE FUTURE
Written by David Foster & Neil Diamond
“Headed For The Future” was released in 1986 and marked the legendary singer’s first attempt on a multiproduced record, choosing to collaborate with big guns like Burt Bacharach, Maurice White, Stevie Wonder and David Foster. Reading the names of the talented musicians, songwriters and producers involved in the project could be quite surprising given the poor final result of the album. Wonder and White both gave weak songs to Diamond, overproduced numbers with little life that doesn’t mix well with the singer’s voice, the only exception being the power ballad “Love Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”. Bacharach did a better job with a couple of good ballads like “I’ll See You On The Radio (Laura)” which is a real treat with its melanchonic feel and “Me Beside You”. Foster brought in a Bryan Adams/Jim Vallance original, “It Should Have Been Me” that Adams wrote at Foster’s request for Julio Iglesias and ended up on Diamond’s record. The song has a nice melody and an effective refrain but we picked the other Foster production on the record as our song od the week. “The Man You Need”, that he co-wrote with the singer, has all the right elements of Foster’s A.C. style of the “St. Elmo’s Fire” years. The song develops from a piano and keys intro and as Neil Diamond starts to sing, soon joined by David Boruff’s sax licks and Mike Landau’s guitar, the listener knows it’s Foster directing the dance.
Foster and Diamond kept the collaboration going with “The Best Years Of Our Lives”, released in 1989, that is more true to the singer’s style than “Headed For The Future”.
Listen
[audio:https://www.fozfan.com/archives/clips/the_man_you_need.mp3|titles=The man you need|artists=Neil Diamond]
Lead Vocal: Neil Diamond
Keyboards: David Foster
Guitar: Michael Landau
Drums Overdubs: Tris Imboden
Keyboard Programming and Saxophone: David Boruff
Background Vocals: Bill Champlin
Arranged by David Foster
Produced by David Foster
Lyrics
I never did believe
That I would end up losing you this way
As far as I could see
The life we had was always gonna stay
And I tried to be
The man you need
I’ll never understand
What I expected out of loving you
The way we had it planned
There always could be
Room enough for two
To live and grow
How could I know
I wouldn’t be the man you need
And I wanna know why
Yeah, I wanna know how
Say I wanna know where
Everything went wrong
And I’m sorry, ’cause I love you
You told me more than once
I never understood my way around
The way that things worked out
I’m still not really sure
Of where I’m bound
You knew me well
I should have seen
I couldn’t be the man you need
And I reach for the sky
I reach for the stars
And all of the time
I was reaching for you
And I’m sorry, ’cause I love you
Say it now again
I’m holdin’ on
I’ve only just begun
To learn the meaning of not having you
I thought for sure
That I would be the man
You need forever more
That I would be the man
You need forever more
I want to be the man
You need forever more