I am ... I said (Neil Diamond) reaction

One of the greatest "identity" songs of all-time -- poetic, direct and poignant, with that wonderful gravelly baritone of Neil Diamond impassioning the song and the emotions. The world stops for a moment when he sings this song about something we have ALL been through.

[@lindaaumiller7592]

I get this more now after moving to Utah from Maryland. His voice takes me with him.

[@aletmartins6940]

I’ve always liked that line about the chair…

[@xyzxyz7042]

Good review, you seem to have more music knowledge than most of us out here, LOL!

[@l.t.6180]

Great review again, thank you. There's another explanation for that line about the chair: Neil went into psychoanalysis at the time he wrote this song. The chair refers to a certain kind of therapy where the patient relays his thoughts to an empty chair while a psychoanalyst attends. It does make sense when you know what's behind it.

[@daxmusix]

That’s very interesting. Not sure if I like it better, knowing that. Sort of like the whole metaphor I was talking about. Either way, sublime. Thanks

[@edwarddavis6827]

Excellent review. For this concert at the BBC, they had the BBC Orchestra behind the curtain and he played the guitar fully miked. His best rendition of this I think was at the Love at The Greek concert in 1976, at the Greek Theatre. Enjoy that too…
Maybe review his “Girl You’ll Be a Woman Soon” “Solitary Man”. Or maybe “Brother Loves Travelling Salvation Show”.
My personal favourites are “Be” - Jonathan Livingston Seagull
“Yes I will”
“If you know what I mean” - Beautiful Noise produced by Robbie Robertson

[@daxmusix]

Thanks much, Edward. I plan to do most of those songs you mentioned and many more by Neil. Thanks again

[@StoptheInsanityofRegressivism]

"I Am..." (Jehovah /God :Exodus 3:7-8, 13-14) and the chair ( psychiatrists/psychotherapists) he feels so not hear him. Crying out to them he believes has left him alone. "I Am... I cried to no one there...." is the cry of a lonely man who believes God has left him. The context is not only Neil Diamond's loneliness at the time he wrote it but also the fact that he was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home. I Am is not just a nebulous cry to a world, but a desperate man's cry out to God to be seen and heard and to feel that he exists and matters. His being lost between two shores includes being lost between two worlds a deep religious faith as an Orthodox Jewish man and competing world of secular humanism represented in the song by the chair (psychologists). He's saying God and psychiatrists have not helped him alleviate his loneliness. But in the end at the last of the song re repeats "I Am... I Said" 'I Am...I Cried." On the album he repeats that as it fades out. In other words as the song concludes he's repeatedly crying out "Oh God! Oh God!" Even in his loneliness and even though he doesn't feel like God is there he's still, because of his faith, stop crying out to Him and not to "the chair." It's like the Imprecatory Psalms reflecting the feelings of abandonment the ancient Israelites expressed when their enemies were overcoming them and they felt God had abandoned them. Knowing the context of his life adds a deeper, more painful depth to this song and underscores what a poet this man is!!!