Sunday Conversation: Neil Diamond On Songwriting, His New Album, Baseball And More

A guy who knows a thing or two about songwriting, Paul McCartney,once said, "You can judge a man's character by the way he treats his fellow animals." Indeed, every dog lover knows how someone interacts with their dogs tells you all you need to know about them as a person.

Halfway through my Zoom call with another iconic songwriter, Neil Diamond, his dogs start barking in the background. After they are brought in the house, Diamond says to them, "What's all the barking about, doggies?"

Then he says, to me, "They want to get their two cents in," before playfully turning back to them and saying, "Everybody sit, pay attention to this now."

Another iconic quote is you should never meet your heroes. But Diamond absolutely proves that's not true. You can see just by how he speaks with his dogs he really is who fans think he is, the same thoughtful, caring writer behind so many classic songs like "September Morn," "Sweet Caroline," "Play Me," "Heartlight" and countless more.   

It is 14 of those classics that make up his superb new album, Classic Diamonds, a pairing with the London Symphony Orchestra. Diamond does very few interviews these days. But having had the honor of doing multiple sets of liner notes with him over the years I was lucky enough to get 45 minutes on Zoom with Diamond to talk about the new album, baseball and have him take me through the songwriting stories of some of his most iconic songs.

Talking songwriting with Neil Diamond is like playing basketball with Lebron James, painting with Pablo Picasso, playing saxophone with John Coltrane and I can go on. The point is, when one of the great American songwriters opens up on the stories behind his songs it is an incredible treat that should be treasured.

Steve Baltin: When did you start recording these songs with the London Symphony?

Neil Diamond: Last February and spent eight months.

Baltin: There have been so many great collaborations over the years between artists and symphonies. Why is it is appealing as an artist to you?

Diamond: Why not? They're great musicians and you can get a fresh take on some of these songs. I recommend it.

Baltin: It's interesting you say get a fresh take. I am sure that is fun for you when you think of how many times you have probably played a song like "Sweet Caroline."

Diamond: I do it pretty much every show. But I haven't done it like this and it changes also a little bit also with each show. I add things, I take things away, I change the arrangement, I sing it a little different, the audience response is pretty much the same. They know it's a party and they join in.

Baltin: Were there favorite songs for you in how they changed?

Diamond: The symphony brought new arrangements and that's enough. You change the song right at the beginning of it and it changes the whole thing. "Sweet Caroline," it was done in a completely different time change, different feel, it was done like a bolero, and that's very different. But I tried to find some fresh way to get into each of these songs. I wasn't that anxious to do it, although Steve Barnett (CEO and Chairman of Capitol Records) had it in his head for a long time that he wanted a bunch of my songs done in a new way than the original record. And I didn't particularly care for the idea. But I did it, I made some demos just to humor him and he turned out to be right because the songs do work in different feels and arrangements and orchestrations. They're different and I like it. It's nice when you have an orchestra like that.

Baltin: So what changed your mind to do the project?

Diamond: I just started to make interpretations and demos of each of the songs that I really liked. And it turned out we could get 14 on the album. I liked the way they sounded doing them different and they are different. So thanks to Steve Barnett I have kind of a new album. I like that.

Baltin: How did you pick the 14 that you did?

Diamond: Just did the ones that sounded the best, the most natural, the freshest. And it came out to be 14 of them. There are more, I could've probably put another half dozen in there, maybe I will if people like this album. But right now these 14 songs done in a new way that's enough to start it off.

Baltin: Is there one or two songs that would be first for the next album?

Diamond: Yeah, but these 14 are the ones that I got. There are a few I didn't get, but we'll do them for the next album maybe.

Baltin: Some of the most different arrangements from the originals are "I'm A Believer" and "I Am...I Said." How did you feel when you first heard those arrangements?

Diamond: I loved it and I loved the work that that the arrangers, William Ross and Walter Afanasieff did. That's all I can say about that. They struck me the best. I probably tried a few that I didn't like as much.

Baltin: And obvious question, why the London Symphony as opposed to another one?

Diamond: Somebody came out of that [initial] meeting with London Symphony Orchestra and they sound great and we did it at Abbey Road. It sounded like great ideas. "Let's make some demos, see how each of these songs plays and pick our favorites." If it's a good idea that's all you need is the idea.

Baltin: Abbey Road is a special place in terms of music history. Did you feel that being there?

Diamond: There's a lot of history in that place, but there's a lot of history in pretty much every recording studio you go to. But for Abbey Road studio, even my son, who's a youngster an d did the photography on the album, was impressed by the fact that it was Abbey Road. He knew what that was and what it meant. If it's good enough for the Beatles it's good enough for me.

Baltin: I was also thinking recently about another interview we did years ago about your love of the Brooklyn Dodgers and how their moving to L.A. broke your heart. Did you forgive them and are you excited about their World Series win?

Diamond: I got over the Brooklyn thing in 1988 when they beat Oakland. And then this series that just came up I followed everything. I didn't know they were going to win, but I did follow them. I forgave them and said, "Let's get on with it and win another series ring." And they did, it made me very happy. I wrote a little note or two to about a dozen of my friends. We didn't gloat, but we sure were happy.

Baltin: Are you an honorary Red Sox fan because of "Sweet Caroline"? Do they have to be by default the second favorite team?

Diamond: (Laughs) They are my second team and I love them because they showed me the love by getting on the "Sweet Caroline" bandwagon. They realized it was gonna be a lucky song and it was very lucky for them and lucky for me. So I was very happy to have it played there. I have a bunch of friends that are from that area in New England. So it was easy for me to root for them. And I didn't have an American League team to root for, so the Red Sox became my rooting team. And I became officially a Red Sox fan when I went there and sang for them for the crowd and they gave me a free hot dog.

Baltin: What do you take from this album when you listen to it as a complete work and what do you hope others take from it?

Diamond: Catch on the beauty of the thing, the way it's performed and the superb musicianship. I have a kid who I sent down there to London, my son Micah. He's a very talented photographer. So I said, "Micah, I need you to go down to London and photograph this session cause it's special." Micah is musical, like all people his age, but he wrote me a letter that moved me. It almost made me cry because he got it and he got the whole thing about the music in that session. He was at that session for two days straight. They didn't sleep, they didn't eat, they just recorded. And he was so moved by it that it raised the hairs on his arm. He told me things he got from that session. He got the music part and he's gonna be a music fan for life. I don't know if he'll be a fan of my stuff. I kind of think he will. So something very positive and wonderful came from him being at that session. With the exception of the front cover (shot by Ari Michelson,) most of the other photos were taken by Micah (Neil’s son Jesse also shot some photos). And he took it with a lot of soul and a lot of passion and he nailed it. I didn't tell him what to capture, what I was looking for. Just wanted great pictures that helped visualize the story and the emotion of the album. And he got it. And that's important to me not only because it's my kid, but that means other listeners get the emotional content of those songs. And Micah certainly did get it, gets all hopped up and enthusiastic when he talks about it. And he never did before. I was just another guy on the radio to him before. But now I'm something special and that means a lot to me.

Baltin: Two songs on here that really stand out to me are "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" and "I Am...I Said." How have those songs changed for you over the years?

Diamond: A song that can hang in your mind for 40 years is a song that deserves a little bit of attention. And that song brings back memories. I'm talking about "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," it puts me right back in that studio with that particular girl [the song started as a solo hit but became a smash duet with Barbara Streisand. including an iconic Grammy performance in 1980] and it doesn't have to be that particular girl by the way because in this album we did it as a solo. But I have done it on stage particularly in the last tour or two just as a solo and I love it. I love not having anybody there and I have a saxophone to play the solos. So it works, it proves itself to me. And thank you for liking it too.

Baltin: It's so fun to hear these songs as they bring up so many memories for fans as well as for you. As I mentioned, "I Am...I Said" is another one that resonates for me so deeply.

Diamond: That was a rough song. I had a lot of battles with that song personally. started writing it in an odd place. I was doing a screen test for a movie and I was really down on myself. I thought I had done a lousy job and I retired to my little camper dressing room and started to write "I Am...I Said" and I wrote maybe two lines. But it was enough to start the song off. When I finished for the day there I went home and I actually started to write the song in earnest. And it wouldn't come to me, it wouldn't give itself up to me. It held back. It did not say, "Here, go ahead and take this and go out to a movie with your wife." It held back all of its meaning and all of its intentions and I had to fight it every day. Every day I worked on it, I worked for a long time on that song. Every day that I went into my writing room and worked on it I started with an argument. I walked and I was talking to myself and people were in my hallways, I walked past them talking to myself and telling myself how to approach this song, how to conquer it, how to win it over, how to make it tell the truth about me and it wouldn't do it for me for the first four months of writing. Every day it did not tell me its truth and I hated it. I was angry at it. I was angry at myself. But anyway I finally think I got it and I'm glad I did because it was going to kill me if I didn't.

Baltin: Funny how that song was so difficult and "Sweet Caroline" was so easy. I am sure all these songs bring up a lot of memories and stories for you.

Diamond: It absolutely does because the good ones stay with you. The relationship between you and those good songs stays with you and you remember the hard times, the glad times and the bad times working with the songs. And most of these songs I remember the actual act of writing and what I was feeling at that time. And that's not usual. A lot of songs you write and then you move on to something else and it can come out great or not great. But they all leave their scars on you in some way or another. "Beautiful Noise," "Hello Again," "I Am...I Said," as I say these titles my mind flashes to the exact place that the song was written and the exact feeling that I had as I was writing it. Some of these are co-writes so the memory includes my co-writer in the memory of these songs. "Heartlight" was written with Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager in Burt's apartment in New York. I remember us sitting around the piano and we had just seen the movie [E.T.] and we loved it. And we went up to Burt's apartment, which is not unusual to remember a memorable song like that. But I remember the architecture in his apartment, why was that? Because I didn't even know what the song was. But I remember that stuff. "Sweet Caroline," as I've told before, was written in a hotel in Memphis and it didn't take very long, just a matter of minutes to get to the heart of that song. And "Love On The Rocks” was written, was written with Gilbert Becaud in Beverly Hills. But I think that was "September Morn" that was written with Gilbert in Paris. "Play Me," I remember finding the time signature for "Play Me" at the studio, at the session. And realized for the first time it was a 3/4 time and that it was a waltz. But I loved it. "Holly Holy" was written in my house in Tarzana, California the day after my first son was born. I was in the next room and I wrote "Holly Holy" while he was screaming his head off. "Song Sung Blue" I remember that only cause a year after I wrote it and was ready to put it out I thought, "Wait, this is a Mozart song, this is not a melody I made up. This is Mozart's 'Piano Concerto No. 21,'" And it was, but I didn't know it. I had written it a year before and turned out to be Mozart, so thank you, Mo. "Hello Again" was written in Malibu with my co-writer and friend Alan Lindgren. We both wrote that and knocked it out pretty quick. Each song has a story and if it's a memorable song it's usually a memorable story. And here's now 14 of them back to back to back in my new album. And they're still alive. These songs were written 40, sometimes 50 years ago, so I feel pretty good about that.