I’ve been a Neil Diamond fan for a long time. He was one of the first singers I recognized on the radio because it was easy to tell his songs from everyone else’s. Neil’s vocal style is a cross between carrying a tune and carrying a conversation, and it was his talking that I liked best. I spent a lot of time alone in my childhood bedroom listening to music, so having someone like Neil share his thoughts with me was comforting.
Perhaps you’re wondering if I’m writing about the same Neil Diamond that you’re familiar with, the superstar whose biggest hits were singalongs like “Sweet Caroline,” toetappers like “Cracklin’ Rosie,” and ballads like “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” Those classics are the ones you’ll hear on today’s oldies station, but it’s songs from early in his career that make me think Neil Diamond was, like me, a lonely boy.
You can hear hints of Neil’s solitary childhood in his first attempts at songwriting—he was composing hits for others before we ever got to hear his voice. Here are his opening lyrics from The Monkees’ smash, “I’m a Believer.” The song has a happy ending, but Neil starts it with this more somber philosophy:
“I thought love was only true in fairy tales
meant for someone else but not for me
Love was out to get me
that's the way it seemed
Disappointment haunted all of my dreams…”
During an interview after gaining fame, Neil said he felt a lot of pressure trying to write those radio-friendly hits for others. Pop music in the early 1960s was almost exclusively about falling in love, but Neil had other concerns on his mind. The memories of his youth, when his New York City family was often in poverty, were waiting to be expressed, so he decided to ignore the pressure of only writing about romance. And to ensure his biographical songs rang true, Neil sang them himself.
When he made his decision to transition to a singing career, later in the ‘60s, I was heading into my teens and just emerging from my lonely childhood. Though it didn’t make a splash on the music charts, one of Neil’s first recordings, “Brooklyn Roads,” introduced me to someone who found New York City as lonesome as my rural upstate New York:
“I built me a castle
with dragons and kings
and I'd ride off with them
as I stood by my window
and looked out on those
Brooklyn Roads…
I'm wonderin'
what's come of them
Does some other young boy
come home to my room
does he dream what I did…”
After a few of his reflective songs went nowhere on the charts, Neil had a little success with the song “Shiloh.” “Shiloh” had a catchy tune that helped its chances of being heard on the radio, but it was Neil’s words that caught my ear:
“Young child with dreams
dream every dream on your own
When children play
seems like you end up alone
Papa says he'd love to be with you
if he had the time
So you turn on the only friend you can find
there in your mind
Shilo, when I was young
I used to call you name
When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came
and we'd play…”
Just in case people weren’t listening closely to Neil’s personal lyrics, he spelled it out in the title of another early hit, “Solitary Man,” a song about the endless search for companionship. As Neil built his career album by album, many of which I collected, each would include a song or two alluding to his lonely younger years. I memorized them all.
Writing this essay about Neil’s influence has given me a chance to take a closer look at what I mean by the word lonely. Though most people associate loneliness with wanting to be with someone, as a kid I was missing something within me: an understanding of who I am. Without that self-acceptance and without truly knowing myself, it was hard to reach out to others. A lonely place.
It probably won’t come as a surprise to learn that music helped me figure out who I am. Over the years I listened to lots of singers, trying their style of music on for size. Among those that fit just right were rhythm & blues songs, a genre of music with a name that accurately described the intermingling of joy and pain inherent in those records. I liked how I felt as I listened to them and it seems the same was true for Neil Diamond. Along with his thoughtful ballads, he also composed rhythm & blues-inspired songs like “Brother Love’s Travellin’ Salvation Show,” “Soolamon,” and “Walk on Water,” all which featured a gospel choir in full voice, lifting Neil’s singing higher and higher.
Those stirring songs, found on the same Neil Diamond albums I was collecting, sounded like an anecdote to his lonely musings. He was guiding me musically. “Find comfort in the songs you love,” he seemed to be saying. “Find it within yourself.”
I took Neil’s advice to heart, moving my love of music to the piano, where I started recreating my favorite songs at the keyboard, playing them as if they were my own. I dabbled in all kinds of music, including some of Neil’s classics. One that I especially enjoy is also one of his biggest hits, “I Am I Said,” which included yet another reference to our lonely childhoods:
“…but 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…”
Well said, Neil. Well sang.
