I Am...I Said

Infobox Single
Name = I Am...I Said


Artist = Neil Diamond
from Album =
B-side = "Done Too Soon"
Released = March 1971
Format = 7" 45 RPM
Genre = Pop/Rock
Length = 3:32
Label = Uni
Writer = Neil Diamond
Producer =
Chart position =
Last single = "Do It"
(1970)
This single = "I Am...I Said"
(1971)
Next single = "Done Too Soon" (1971) "I Am...I Said" is a song written and recorded by Neil Diamond. Released as a single in March 1971,cite web | url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:gifixqe5ld6e~T1 | title=Neil Diamond: Biography | author=William Ruhlmann | publisher=Allmusic | accessdate=2008-04-30] it was quite successful, at first slowly climbing the charts, then more quickly rising to number 4 on the U.S. pop singles chart by May 1971.cite book | last=Whitburn | first=Joel | authorlink=Joel Whitburn | title=The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits: 1955 to present | publisher=Billboard Publications | year=1983 | isbn=0-8230-7511-7 p. 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 | accessdate=2008-04-30]

"I Am...I Said" took Diamond four months to compose.cite book | last=Jackson | first=Laura | authorlink=Laura Jackson | title=Neil Diamond: His Life, His Music, His Passion | publisher=ECW Press | year=2005 | isbn=1550227076 pp. 80–81.] One of his most intensely personal efforts, it depicts the singer lost between two worlds:

:"Well, I'm New York City born and raised:"But nowadays, I'm lost between two shores:"L.A.'s fine, but it ain't home —:"New York's home but it ain't mine no more ...

Verses start quietly in a low vocal range, half sung and half spoken, with a soft rock guitar and light strings backing. By the chorus climaxes, the vocals are much louder and higher in pitch, with horns, heavier drums and more strings joining in, but the singer even more uncertain:

:"I am, I cried!:"I am, said I.:"And I am lost, and I can't even say why ...

"I Am...I Said" was later 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.

Critical opinion on "I Am...I Said" has generally been good, with "Rolling Stone" calling its lyric excellent in a 1972 review,cite news | url=http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/neildiamond/albums/album/106714/review/5942720/stones | title=Neil Diamond: Stones | author=Paul Gambaccini | publisher="Rolling Stone" | date=1972-01-20 | accessdate=2008-04-30] while "The New Yorker" used it to exemplify Diamond's songwriting opaqueness in a 2006 retrospective. [cite news | url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/01/16/060116crmu_music | title=Hello, Again | author=Sasha Frere-Jones | publisher="The New Yorker" | date=2006-01-16 | accessdate=2008-04-30] A 2008 Diamond profile in "The Daily Telegraph" simply referred to the song's "raging existential angst," [cite news | url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/05/03/bmdiamond103.xml | title=Neil Diamond: the hurt, the dirt, the shirts | author=Neil McCormick | publisher="The Daily Telegraph" | date=2008-03-05 | accessdate=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 garnered Diamond his first Grammy Awards nomination, for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male.

"I Am...I Said" has 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 news | url=http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/neildiamond/articles/story/8730821/neil_diamonds_jewels | title=Neil Diamonds' Jewels | author=Dan Epstein | publisher="Rolling Stone" | date=2005-11-03 | accessdate=2008-05-08] ) and "" (from 1992), as well as in various compilations.

Brooke White performed the song on "American Idol"'s seventh season during its Neil Diamond week,cite news | url=http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/blog/2008/04/a_couple_of_adm.html | title='Idol:' Loose Diamonds | author=Joanna Weiss | publisher="The Boston Globe" | date=2008-04-29 | accessdate=2008-05-16] changing the lyric to replace New York City with her home state of Arizona. Among the foreign versions,we remember the Italian language "La casa degli angeli " ("House of the angels"),performed by Caterina Caselli in the original 1971. [cite web | url=http://www.lavocedelledonne.it/cantante.aspx?id_cantante=211 | title=Caterina Caselli | author=Augusta Grignano | publisher=La voce delle donne | language=Italian | accessdate=2008-05-16]

References