Balarama Music

Originals Week: Who Was A Believer?

Jun 01

Doug1960s neil diamond, originals week, the monkees No Comments

Sorry about the late post. When I tried to post it yesterday at 6, the internet wasn’t working so I said fuck that, grabbed some cigars, and invited a friend over. Six hours later, I promptly passed out.

Let’s travel again back to 1967 but under different circumstances. A year earlier, Beatlemania was still riding high and the entertainment industry of America was looking to cash in on it in an original manner. The best thought they would come up with would ultimately the same formula that made the New Kids On The Block, Backstreet Boys, and N*SYNC so famous in the latter part of the century: just create a band. So in essence, the American entertainment industry created the American version of the Beatles complete with misspelling: The Monkees. Their show was a hit and their popularity took off as Hollywood crafted each of their identities and the best in music wrote their songs for them including one man who was on the rise in the late 60s: Neil Diamond.

The Monkees were on shaky ground going into the last month of 1966. Their first single, “Last Train To Clarksville,” had performed very well on the Billboard and had good reactions, but the relation to the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” was far too much (especially considering the songwriter got the idea while listening to the song) and the fact that The Monkees were subtly protesting the Vietnam War which didn’t make their record or television producers overly thrilled since they were supposed to be the bubblegum pop Beatles of America, not the social conscience version. So what to do, what to do? Well, a love song is always a good way to establish yourself as that pop group and guarantee that not only will women flock over your looks, but also what you say.

Enter Neil Diamond, the struggling performer with an already built-up reputation of songwriting. By this point in time, Diamond had already written some Billboard hits for groups like Jay And The Americans & Paul Revere And The Raiders. However, also by this point, Diamond had begun to feel the itch of doing his own thing and had already had one successful album under his belt. He had already finished recording his second album set to be released at the end of 1966. Amongst the hits-to-be on this new album like “Shilo” & “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” was a gem that would become one of those great songs that you recognize instantly from the opening riff, “I’m A Believer.”

Didn’t take long for RCA to hear this gem as Diamond had already done work for them and before long, Diamond had received a huge check allowing The Monkees to use his song and catapult themselves to an even bigger level of success which would include having the best single of 1967 and lead the Monkees to outselling The Rolling Stones & The Beatles combined that year in the US.

Sadly though, the Monkees released their single in December of the previous year which is when Diamond planned to release Just For You. What resulted was Neil Diamond’s second solo album getting delayed until the middle of August so by that point, if anyone heard his album, they would just assume Diamond covered The Monkees version. It’s s shame The Monkees will go down with credit for the song when it was actually Diamond’s mind & music that made it possible, while all they had to do was show up to the studio to record that day.

At least they had the musical maturity to bring us Tim Buckley on their show.

Title: I’m A Believer
Artist: Neil Diamond
Album: Just For You
Year: 1967

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