I Am... I Said
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{{Infobox song
| name = I Am... I Said
| cover = IAmISaidSleeve.jpg
| alt =
| type = single
| artist = Neil Diamond
| album = Stones
| B-side = Done Too Soon
| released = March 15, 1971
| recorded =
| studio =
| venue =
| genre = Pop rock
| length = 3:32
| label = Uni
| writer = Neil Diamond
| producer = Tom Catalano
| prev_title = Do It
| prev_year = 1970
| next_title = Done Too Soon
| next_year = 1971
| misc = {{external music video |{{YouTube|8TYesac3Hmw|"I Am... I Said" by Neil Diamond}}}}
}}
"I Am... I Said" is a song written and recorded by Neil Diamond. Released as a single on March 15, 1971,{{cite web | url={{AllMusic | class =artist| id =p4083/biography| pure_url =yes}} | title = Neil Diamond: Biography | author=William Ruhlmann | website= Allmusic | access-date= 2008-04-30}} it was quite successful, at first slowly climbing the charts and then more quickly rising to number 4 on the U.S. pop singles chart by May 1971.{{cite book | last = Whitburn | first = Joel | author-link = Joel Whitburn | title = The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits: 1955 to present | publisher = Billboard Publications | year = 1983 | isbn = 0-8230-7511-7 | page = [https://archive.org/details/billboardbookoft0000whit_x9d9/page/88 88] | url = https://archive.org/details/billboardbookoft0000whit_x9d9/page/88 }} It fared similarly across the Atlantic, reaching number 4 on the UK pop singles chart as well.{{cite web|url=http://www.everyhit.com/searchsec.php |title=Neil Diamond search results |publisher=everyHit.com |access-date=2008-04-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081012195559/http://www.everyhit.com/searchsec.php |archive-date=October 12, 2008 }}
Inspiration
"I Am... I Said", which took Diamond four months to compose,{{cite book | last= Jackson | first = Laura | author-link=Laura Riding | title= Neil Diamond: His Life, His Music, His Passion | publisher= ECW Press | year= 2005 | isbn = 1-55022-707-6 | pages = 80–81}} is one of his most intensely personal efforts, making reference to both Los Angeles and New York City.Abramovitch, Seth (May 24, 2015) [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/neil-diamond-hollywood-bowl-concert-797802/ "Neil Diamond Marks L.A. Homecoming with Sold-Out Run at Hollywood Bowl"], Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 1, 2021. Diamond told Mojo magazine in July 2008 that the song came from a time he spent in therapy in Los Angeles. He said: {{cquote|It was consciously an attempt on my part to express what my dreams were about, what my aspirations were about and what I was about. And without any question, it came from my sessions with the analyst.{{cite web|url=http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=11835 |title=I Am...I Said by Neil Diamond Songfacts |website=Songfacts.com |access-date=2016-10-03}}}} In the same month, he told Q that the song was written "to find [him]self" and added, "It's a tough thing for me to gather myself after singing that song."
But Diamond has also given another inspiration for this song: an unsuccessful tryout for a movie about the life and death of the comedian Lenny Bruce. Author David Wild interviewed Diamond for a 2008 book and he discussed how his efforts to channel Lenny Bruce evoked such intense emotions that it led him to spend some time in therapy.David Wild. He Is . . . I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond. Da Capo Press, 2008, pp. 107-108.
Reception
Critical opinion on "I Am... I Said" has generally been positive, with Rolling Stone calling its lyric excellent in a 1972 review,{{cite magazine | url=https://www.rollingstone.com/artists/neildiamond/albums/album/106714/review/5942720/stones | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001160759/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/neildiamond/albums/album/106714/review/5942720/stones | url-status=dead | archive-date=October 1, 2007 | title = Neil Diamond: Stones | author-link = Paul Gambaccini | first = Paul | last = Gambaccini | magazine= Rolling Stone | date= 1972-01-20 | access-date= 2008-04-30}} while The New Yorker used it to exemplify Diamond's songwriting opaqueness in a 2006 retrospective.{{cite magazine | url = http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/01/16/060116crmu_music | title= Hello, Again | first = Sasha | last = Frere-Jones | author-link = Sasha Frere-Jones | magazine= The New Yorker | date = 2006-01-16 | access-date = 2008-04-30}} Cash Box described the song as having "excellent production and performance."{{cite news|title=CashBox Record Reviews|date=March 13, 1971|page=26|accessdate=2021-12-09|url=https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/70s/1971/Cash-Box-1971-03-13.pdf|newspaper=Cash Box}} Record World said "Personal number does Descartes' 'I think therefore I am' one better and Neil's philosophy always makes the charts"{{cite magazine|title=Picks of the Week|magazine=Record World|date=March 20, 1971|page=1|accessdate=2023-04-22|url=https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Record-World/70s/71/Record-World-1971-03-20.pdf}}
A 2008 Diamond profile in The Daily Telegraph simply referred to the song's "raging existential angst,"{{cite news | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/05/03/bmdiamond103.xml | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080503110753/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/05/03/bmdiamond103.xml | url-status=dead | archive-date=2008-05-03 | title=Neil Diamond: the hurt, the dirt, the shirts | first =Neil | last = McCormick | newspaper= The Daily Telegraph | date=2008-03-05 | access-date=2008-05-02}} and Allmusic calls it "an impassioned statement of emotional turmoil... very much in tune with the confessional singer/songwriter movement of the time."
The song was not without its detractors, however. Humorist Dave Barry said:
{{cquote|Consider the song "I Am, I Said", wherein Neil, with great emotion, sings: "I am, I said, to no one there. And no one heard at all, not even the chair". What kind of line is that? Is Neil telling us he's surprised that the chair didn't hear him? Maybe he expected the chair to say, "Whoa, I heard that!" My guess is that Neil was really desperate to come up with something to rhyme with "there" and he had already rejected "So I ate a pear", "Like Smokey The Bear", and "There were nits in my hair".{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qTzQzlDyROMC&pg=PT14 |title=
Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs |first=Dave |last=Barry |author-link=Dave Barry |publisher=Andrews McMeel Publishing |isbn=9781449437589 |page= |date=2012-11-06 |access-date=2025-06-17 |via=Google Books}}}}
The song garnered Diamond his first Grammy Awards nomination, for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male.
Charts
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Certifications
{{Certification Table Top}}
{{Certification Table Entry|region=United Kingdom|type=single|artist=Neil Diamond|title=I Am I Said|award=Silver|relyear=2004|certyear=2022|id=18262-887-1|access-date=July 29, 2022}}
{{Certification Table Bottom|nosales=true|noshipments=true|streaming=true}}
Other versions
"I Am... I Said" was included on Diamond's November 1971 album Stones. The single version leads off the LP, while a reprise of the song, taken from midway to a variant ending with Diamond exclaiming "I am!", concludes. It has also been included in live versions on Diamond's Hot August Night (from 1972, in a performance that Rolling Stone would later label "fantastically overwrought"{{cite magazine | url= https://www.rollingstone.com/artists/neildiamond/articles/story/8730821/neil_diamonds_jewels | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080725135738/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/neildiamond/articles/story/8730821/neil_diamonds_jewels | url-status= dead | archive-date= July 25, 2008 | title= Neil Diamonds' Jewels | first =Dan | last = Epstein | magazine=Rolling Stone | date=2005-11-03 | access-date = 2008-05-08}}).
Checkmates, Ltd. released a version of the song on their 1971 album, Life.{{cn|date=June 2023}} Brooke White performed the song on American Idol
See also
References
{{reflist}}
{{Neil Diamond singles}}
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Category:Checkmates, Ltd. songs
Category:Irish Singles Chart number-one singles
Category:Number-one singles in New Zealand
Category:Songs about Los Angeles
Category:Songs about New York City