I Am...I Said

Neil Diamond goes through a full-on existential crisis in this song as he screams out, knowing no one will hear him. David Wild, author of He Is...I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond, told Songfacts: "Neil began the song after doing a screen test to play rebel comedian Lenny Bruce in a film. Feeling that he had failed, Neil was thrown into something of an existential funk and started the song. It would take months for him to finish the song, but in the end it would become a classic. One postscript: around 2000, Neil allowed me to see the 'failed' screen test that set him off, and I was surprised to see that after all that he was really wonderful in the part. Still, things worked out pretty well for Neil."

Neil Diamond told Q magazine July 2008 that he had to write this autobiographical song "to find myself." Diamond added "It's a tough thing for me to gather myself after singing that song."

This took Diamond four months to compose.