My song today is ‘Song Sung Blue’ This was a 1972 hit song that was written and recorded by Neil Diamond. It was inspired by the second movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto Number 21. It was released on Diamond's album ‘Moods’, and later appeared on many of Diamond's live and compilation albums. The song was a Number1 hit on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ chart in the United States for one week, the week of July 1, and it spent twelve weeks in the Top 40. It also made the pop chart in the United Kingdom, reaching Number14 on the ‘UK Singles Chart’.
"Song Sung Blue" was Diamond's second Number 1 hit in the U.S.A,, and to date his last solo Number 1 song. He had a number 1 duet with Barbra Streisand in 1978 with ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers’. In addition, "Song Sung Blue" spent seven weeks at Number 1 on the ‘Adult Contemporary Chart’. The song has become one of Diamond's standards, and he often performs it during concerts. Nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1973 for ‘Record of the Year’ and ‘Song of the Year’, Diamond was pipped to the post on each nomination. Diamond said that he never expected the song to be any more than ‘basic’ and added that is why he did not even write a bridge to it
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Neil Diamond admitted that this song was a basic ‘experimental’ song about everything in general and nothing in particular. When we allow the hot water to boil away from the cooking pot of life, or when the fortune teller looks at the remaining tea leaves in the bottom of their client’s cup, that is all any of us are left with to make sense out of life. Such are the all or nothing of our life’s experiences. Do any of you fancy a cuppa?
Love and peace
Bill xxx