My song today is ‘I Am I Said’. This song was written and recorded by Neil Diamond and was released as a single in March 1971. It slowly climbed the charts, then eventually rising to Number 4 on the ‘US Pop Singles Chart’ by May 1971. It fared similarly across the Atlantic, reaching Number 4 on the ‘UK Pop Singles Chart’.
'I Am... I Said' took Diamond four months to compose. One of his most intensely personal efforts, Neil Diamond told Mojo Magazine July 2008 that this song came from a time he spent in therapy in Los Angeles. He said:
“It was consciously an attempt on my part to express what my dreams were about, what my aspirations were about, and what I was about. And without any question, it came from my sessions with the analyst. The song was written in an attempt to find himself.
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As Neil Diamond himself explained in his press interview, the song was a conscious effort to find himself following a period in therapy. When I heard this song for the first time it took me back to the scriptures and the biblical reference from John 8:24 in which Jesus states: "For unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins", and later the crowd attempts to stone Jesus in response to his statement in John 8:58: "Before Abraham was, I am.”
Each of us represents the love of Christ; indeed, we are the very embodiment of Christ’s love. In God’s image was mankind created, and it in his love we are nourished with the goodness of humankind.
Love and peace Bill xxx