‘I Am…I Said’: The Story Behind The Neil Diamond.

For Neil, the song was ‘what my dreams were about, what my aspirations were about, and what I was about.’

‘I Am…I Said’: The Story Behind The Neil Diamond Classic

For Neil, the song was ‘what my dreams were about, what my aspirations were about, and what I was about.’

 

Published on March 15, 2024By Brett Milano

Photo: RB/Redferns

 

In 1970, Neil Diamond auditioned to play the lead role in a film about the comic Lenny Bruce. He didn’t get the part, but he did come away from the experience with a classic song, “I Am… I Said.”

 

While his previous hits were mainly character songs or universally themed love songs, “I Am… I Said” was the first to tell you exactly what was on Neil Diamond’s mind.

Reaching that point wasn’t easy. Diamond was serious about getting into the movies in 1970, though he’d as yet done very little acting. When producer Marvin Worth courted him about a Lenny Bruce biopic, he threw himself into it – to the point of performing a full set of standup comedy at The Bitter End West in West Hollywood. (To fans’ eternal frustration, no recordings of this have ever turned up.)