Tomorrow Won't Bring The Rain 
Dion & The Wanderers
(Dion DiMucci/Carlo Mastrangelo) Columbia, 1965

Dion Di Mucci wrote '(I Was) Born To Cry' when he was sixteen
On the recording he sings seven bells out of the song
It's in a minor key but sounds like two legions of pop
Kicking the door in
Then beating you up

I saw him play live a couple of times in 1990
I was right at the front
He wore sunglasses and a peaked cap
And a black leather jacket
Which he took off
Theatrically

The enormity of his talent made him seem a little inhuman
Like little Michael Jackson singing 'Who's Loving You?'
The precocity is overwhelming
Distancing
Sickening
When it should make us stagger and swoon

I remember him playing 'Make The Woman Love Me'
Which I then searched for on record for 10 years
The record Phil Spector lovingly built for his idol Dion
It is the Taj Mahal of pop
With bells on

Dion's voice is like a miraculously cast bell
His singing is utterly fearless
And open
Heroin has given his voice
The patina of mortal ruin
Only the marble-hearted
And the deaf
Should remain
Unmoved.