Before Neil Diamond became one of the most successful singer-songwriters of his generation, he was trying to make himself look a little more successful than he actually was.
Diamond recalled that period of his life in a new interview with Billboard, remembering the unusual trick he used while still struggling to establish himself in the music business: He put fake celebrity autographs on the wall of his office to give visitors the impression that famous people were already coming through the door.
"I had a little office nearby on Broadway. There was a pay phone in there, and I had pictures on the wall of popular singers that I faked their autographs on to make it look like they were signed to me, so I looked more successful," Diamond recalled.
Then came the song that changed everything.
In early 1966, Diamond recorded “Solitary Man,” the first single of his career as a recording artist. Released by Bang Records that April, the song became his first charting hit, reaching No. 55 on the Billboard Hot 100.
It wasn't an enormous hit, at least not yet. But for Diamond, it represented something much bigger: proof that he could make it as the artist rather than simply the man writing songs for other people.
Diamond had already spent years trying to break into the music business as a songwriter before “Solitary Man.” The single arrived just months before his debut album The Feel of Neil Diamond and introduced a persona that would follow him throughout his career: the romantic outsider searching for a connection.
Diamond wouldn't fully understand just how personal the song was until much later.
“After four years of Freudian analysis, I realized I had written ‘Solitary Man’ about myself,” he told the Sunday Times years later.
The song's first run on the charts was modest, but it wasn't finished. After Diamond became a major star later in the decade, Bang re-released “Solitary Man” in 1970. This time, it climbed all the way to No. 21 on the Hot 100 and No. 6 on Billboard's Easy Listening chart.
Decades later, Rolling Stone critic Dan Epstein praised how much heartbreak and self-assertion Diamond packed into roughly two and a half minutes.
"Neil's first hit single, 'Solitary Man' remains the most brilliantly efficient song in the Diamond collection. There's not a wasted word or chord in this two-and-a-half minute anthem of heartbreak and self-affirmation, which introduced the melancholy loner persona that he's repeatedly returned to throughout his career," wrote Epstein.
And the song traveled far beyond Diamond's own recordings.
T.G. Sheppard turned it into a country hit in 1976, while Chris Isaak recorded it for his 1993 album San Francisco Days. Finnish rock band HIM took its version into the U.K. Top 10 in 2004.
Perhaps the most famous reinterpretation came from Johnny Cash, who made “Solitary Man” the title track of his 2000 album American III: Solitary Man. Cash's recording, featuring backing vocals from Tom Petty, earned him the Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.
Not bad for a song released when Diamond was still trying to convince people, fake autographs and all, that somebody famous might walk into his office.
Sixty years later, “Solitary Man” stands as the recording that introduced Neil Diamond to the charts and started a career that would ultimately produce songs including “Sweet Caroline,” “Cracklin' Rosie,” “Song Sung Blue” and “I Am… I Said.”
Related: 1971 Hit, Which Took Neil Diamond 4 Months to Write, Remains His Favorite Song 55 Years Later
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