This song is about a child who makes up an imaginary friend. Diamond later said that he was at least partially addressing his younger self, and called the song "a feast for psychological interpretation."
Diamond wanted to release this song about an imaginary childhood friend as a single but his record label, Bang Records, thought it was too introspective. This upset Diamond and he consequently left the label. A couple of years later Bang suddenly issued the 1967 version of this song before withdrawing it again. They then re-recorded the instrumental backing behind his original voice track so that the song now sounded a lot like his more recent material. The partly re-recorded version was released as a single peaking at #24 in the US. Diamond reacted by re-recording his own version and putting it on an already existing album, Velvet Gloves And Spit, and reissuing it with this new addition advertised on the front cover.
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.