I recently got an email from my mother, it was a forward from a lady she knows who works with high school students and their research projects (kind of like a librarian, but this lady just does the research with them…anyways…).
Last quarter, I wrote my two papers and took a final in an English class that involved Bobbie Ann Mason’s short story “Shiloh”. My mother forwarded me this email because that was the students choice of stories to write about, and this student said their teacher mentioned they “thought they recalled” a song based on the ideas in the story. I had never heard of this, but it’s very possible it exists, was in some of the things I read about the story, and I never noticed. I was hoping some literary-doper could help me out.
Is there a song, somewhere, based on the short story “Shiloh” by Bobbie Ann Mason?
I’m not familiar with the story but there is the Neil Diamond song “Shilo” which was a minor hit in the early '70s. You can google the lyrics easily enough.
I have no idea whether there is a connection between song and story. I remember hearing this tune when I was a lad of tender years and I remember finding it to be just rather weird.
Maybe it was the notes from the toy piano they use after the chorus.
Does this have any connection to what you are talking about?
It’s quite possible there was something to the Neil Diamond song that had to do with it, but I don’t think that is it, since the story is about Shiloh, Tenn. and the song doesn’t seem to be, but it could be. I’m not sure.
Thanks for trying though. All my researching doesn’t help at all, so maybe it was an imagined connection (or imagined song)…Thanks anyways, minlokwat
The book Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is also about a dog named Shiloh, and the boy who took ownership of him after rescuing him from abuse. Maybe the teacher was thinking of this Shiloh, not the one by Bobbie Ann Mason?
That sounds very probable. I will be honest (also, no offense to the woman who said it) but I had a high school teacher who thought the stories were the same. I guess since they are both named Shiloh, people assume things when they don’t know. I’ll let her know what I found out thanks to the Dope…