Two in two days, twice as nice!
While I was familiar with this week's featured song, it was another in a long line of library book sale finds that first brought home how wonderful of a tune it is. I found this week's artist's His 12 Greatest Hits for the low, low price of a dollar and decided to take a chance on it. While I would not consider myself to be a big fan of his, over the course of the few weeks I listened to it I found three or four songs that I really liked, and one that I loved...which would be this week's post....
Neil Diamond is another of those artists who career achievements are a bit much for a paragraph, but I'll synopsize a handful of them for posterity. Diamond got his start when he received a guitar for his sixteenth birthday and almost immediately started writing songs. He was in a couple of groups before turning his attention to songwriting as a career, and until the late sixties made a small living (his most noticeable hit was "I'm a Believer"--emaycee fave!--by the Monkees). In the late sixties he began a solo career in earnest and buoyed by a number of hit singles and a live album became a force to be reckoned with in the seventies. Over the course of his career, Diamond has had a number of ultra successful world tours, won a Grammy Award, starred in a movie (The Jazz Singer), was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame in 1984, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. For his career, he has released thirty-two studio albums (one #1 and ten more top ten), two soundtracks (both top five), eight live albums, thirty-five compilation albums, and ninety-six singles (with ten of them hitting #1). Sadly, Diamond was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 2018, and while he still performs one offs, has pretty much retired from the music business. [Blogger's Note: Diamond gets extra props from emaycee for appearing in my personal Holy Grail, which my loyal readers--all three of you--will know is the rockumentary The Last Waltz. He performed the song "Dry Your Eyes" which he co-wrote with Robbie Robertson of The Band.]
Fun Fact: Diamond attended Erasmus High School for two years, during which time he was classmates with Barbra Streisand and chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer.
"I Am...I Said" was released as a single in 1971, and later added to his seventh studio album, the rather rocky titled Stones. The single would reach #4 (with a bullet!), while the album would peak at #11,
It took Diamond four months to write "I Am...I Said" and, in retrospect, it was worth every minute to him as the song is considered one of his best both musically and as a songwriter. He has said the song is about being lost and lonely when he first moved to Los Angeles from his native New York, knowing that neither was now home. Opening with some nice acoustic guitar picking, Diamond lays out his dilemma by contrasting his feelings for the two cities before crying "I am" to battle the emptiness he feels inside. The song is very personal (if ever there was a no shit, Sherlock moment....), and for me, Diamond spills his life without drowning himself in a pity party. It's a song about finding a way to the comforts of a fabled home, and in the end is a gem from the era in which the singer/songwriter was king.
Lyric Sheet: "'I am,' I cried/'I am' said I/And I am lost and I can't/Even say why..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
