Neil Diamond knows a thing or two about songwriting. In his vast discography are some of the greatest pop songs of all time: Sweet Caroline, Solitary Man, Cracklin’ Rosie, Song Sung Blue, Beautiful Noise, Forever In Blue Jeans, Love On The Rocks and Hello Again.
But there is one song he would prefer to forget. He wrote and recorded it in the late ’60s – and it has embarrassed him ever since.
He named it The Pot Smoker’s Song, and as he admitted to Q magazine in 2008: “Oh, it was terrible! It was laughed at.”
Article continues belowHe explained: “I did it because I’d become involved in an anti-drug programme in New York called Phoenix House. I got to know the people who ran it, and I became very much involved in what these people, these addicts, were going though.
“It seemed like they all started out smoking pot, which was readily available, and they moved on to bigger stuff. So in my mind, I had to write a song.
“I kind of made it a semi-documentary. Those were the addicts talking through it. They were trying to pull their lives together and were telling me their story.
“I felt that I was telling the truth against a silly melodic kind of song. But it may not have even been true as far as far as pot was concerned. Up till that point I had never smoked pot before. I didn’t know what it was. It was just another drug.”
The Pot Smoker’s Song was included on Diamond’s 1968 album Velvet Gloves And Spit – the title of which is also an embarrassment to him. “Horrible!” he declared to Q.
But that album was a significant milestone in his career – his first for the Uni label, a subsidiary of MCA Records.
He recalled: “I changed labels from Bang Records, where I was just owned – in every sense of the word – by the record company. I had hits there, and they wanted more. They wanted another Cherry, Cherry, another Kentucky Woman, another Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon. But my writing was taking a different turn.
“I wanted to try something different. I said, ‘I can’t do it anymore.’ So I left the label. And they sued me, but I left the label.
“So I’m with a new label now, and they said, ‘You can do anything you want.’ So I did.
“At the time, Velvet Gloves And Spit seemed like a cool title. I had no idea what it meant, it just sounded funky and natural.
“But the album is not very good, I think. I haven’t heard it in 20 years. But it was my first chance to just write whatever I wanted to write.”
Fortunately for Diamond, Velvet Gloves And Spit and The Pot Smoker’s Song did no lasting damage to his career.
But the song that precipitated his departure from Bang Records turned out to be a sleeper hit and one of his most acclaimed compositions.
As he told Q: “Shilo was the song that got me into the lawsuit with the first record company, because I wanted them to release it as a single, and they didn’t want Shilo – they wanted Cherry, Cherry again.
“I probably would have given them Cherry, Cherry again if I knew how to write Cherry, Cherry again. But I’m not that good a writer. And Cherry, Cherry was one of a kind. You could dance to it and you didn’t have to think about it too much.
“Shilo was too introspective. Maybe the first of those songs that related to my own life, otherwise why would I fight for it so hard?”
He added: “It’s a pretty good song. It’s not the greatest thing to come down the pipe. But it was important for me at that time in my development as a writer.
“Back then, The Beatles were growing with every record, and this was at the time when The Beatles were The Beatles! And I wanted the chance to grow too. I wanted the chance to write new and different and better.”
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