TOP 40 DEBUT: January 19, 1980
PEAK POSITION: #17 (March 1, 1980)
Believe it or not, there was once a time when Neil Diamond appreciated subtlety. The king of big, broad, bellowing balladry actually made his initial reputation as a songwriter, one of the last great Brill Building composers whose ranks also included Burt Bacharach, Carole King, and Neil Sedaka. Diamond’s work during the Sixties was melodic, catchy, and—relative to his career to come, anyway—remarkably understated. “Solitary Man,” “Cherry, Cherry,” “Thank The Lord For The Night Time”: These and other early singles comprised a formidable body of work, even before factoring in all his songs made famous by others (“I’m A Believer,” “Kentucky Woman,” “Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon”). 1972’s Hot August Night didn’t just present public, platinum evidence of Neil’s formidable power as a live draw; the 22-track live double album also served notice that one of the era’s finest composers had been operating outside the rock n’ roll mainstream for over seven years.
It took just seven more years for that particular Diamond to completely disappear altogether. In his place? An over-the-top showman well on his way to full-blown caricature. The electric performer who astounded on August now embraced hamfisted kitsch with 1977’s live pseudo-sequel, Love At The Greek. The precocious writer who once outflanked the entire British Invasion in 1967 with “I’m A Believer” was now everyone’s drunk uncle in The Last Waltz, hilariously out-of-place and infamously out-of-touch. For reasons I’ll never understand, Neil Diamond entered his “Vegas Elvis” period early and never left. By 1980, “September Morn’” was simply par for the course, yet another overwrought Top 40 entry from a gaudy superstar only tangentially connected to that young, solitary man writing “Solitary Man.”
Diamond didn’t slip into full-blown kitsch all at once. Take “Sweet Caroline,” arguably his signature song and one of the greatest drunken bar singalongs ever written. (It’s a 10. I’m not made of stone.) The original, which peaked at #4 in August 1969, is a relatively subdued affair, taunt and sprightly and far less bombastic than you probably remember. Three years later, the Hot August Night version amps up the spectacle in incremental ways: slight exaggerations in the vocal, extra grandeur from the orchestra. By the time we reach the September ’76 shows comprising the Love At The Greek album and accompanying television special (of course), Diamond’s ad-libs have hardened into shtick, and “Sweet Caroline” is now squarely in lounge act territory. Lean fillet to pure ham, in just seven short years. (Interestingly, performances from this century find Neil back to playing the song mostly straight, correctly realizing the audience deserves to dominate at this juncture.)
“Sweet Caroline,” of course, is a sturdy composition with decades of fan support undergirding every last lyric; even overblown, the tune still works. “September Morn’” doesn’t enjoy that same margin for error. It’s a cloyingly sentimental song given a cloyingly saccharine arrangement, a ballad born to soundtrack waiting rooms and J. C. Penney department stores. “September Morn’” exists in a world dominated by drippy piano and mawkish strings, an easy-listening hellscape where every element comes straight from a Mantovani Reader’s Digest compilation. By the time the thuddingly obvious key change hits, you might find yourself choking from all the excess syrup spilling over the edges.
I’m not sure if Diamond’s full-throated, pompous delivery really provides any kind of “saving grace” here, but he’s certainly the only interesting element of the entire production. Diamond treats “September Morn’” like a talented actor approaching a bad soap opera script, throwing nuance out the window in favor of full-bore theatrics. He’s fully committed. He’s all-in. He’s chewing every piece of scenery in sight. And that makes his effort both commendable, and unintentionally hysterical.
The track’s opening moments suggest a certain mood: soft and delicate, like the quiet placidity of an early morning sunrise. Diamond blows all that up in two seconds. From the very first line, he’s projecting to the back rows, a choice that turns “Stay for just a while/ Stay and let me look at you” from a lover’s plea into the leer of a man deep into his third Scotch. And it gets worse. (Or, depending on your viewpoint, better.) I’m almost positive the lyric “Look at what you've done/ Why, you've become a grown-up girl” isn’t supposed to be funny, because Neil sings it with a deadly seriousness—which, of course, just makes it even funnier. But then again, how can you really tell? Pile on enough schmaltz, and everything starts to sound like a joke.
Diamond co-wrote “September Morn’” with Gilbert Bécaud, one of the biggest vocalists and composers to come out of France in the last century. Bécaud penned operas, musicals, and pop hits; he released one of the biggest-selling singles in French history, and saw his songs recorded (in English) by Elvis Presley, Judy Garland, and Frank Sinatra. I don’t pretend to be any kind of authority on Gilbert Bécaud, but a cursory listen to his work reveals a very French tendency for lush, romantic melodicism and big, sweeping melodrama. It’s entirely possible he was better suited for Neil Diamond’s late Seventies career than Neil himself.
The first version of “September Morn’,” titled “C’est En Septembre,” appeared only in France, released as the title track to Bécaud’s 1978 album. (Wikipedia also claims a single release, but I couldn’t confirm this anywhere else.) Obvious language adjustment aside, his reading isn’t much different from Diamond’s later interpretation; Gilbert holds back in spots, which mostly works in his favor, but Neil gets points for truly bringing the gusto in those final choruses. (That key change must’ve sparked something.) Still, there’s an unforced earnestness to Bécaud’s rendition that’s vastly more appealing than the big-budget slickness of the hit American version. Maybe foreign-language lyrics help all that sentimentality go down smoother. Or maybe big, sweeping melodrama just sounds better in a French accent.
A year later, Diamond made “September Morn’” the title track of his own full-length effort, which arrived in stores just before Christmas of 1979. Like all of Neil’s studio releases from 1972 through 1982, September Morn went platinum, but it’s easily one of his weakest records in that whole run; Side Two alone contains both a horrid remake of his own “I’m A Believer” and an even more horrid remake of “Dancing In The Street.” (Yes, we’re only one month into 1980 and this is already the second time I've been subjected to an awful cover of “Dancing In The Street.”) At least neither of those were picked for the second single. That honor instead went to “The Good Lord Loves You,” a not-terrible track that peaked at a pretty terrible #67 and hasn't appeared on a single Diamond compilation since.
In contrast, “September Morn’” now appears on practically all Neil-related compilations, the lone legacy of the album that bears its name: a #2 Adult Contemporary smash in America, and #1 on the corresponding chart in Canada. Its sappy success practically guaranteed that Diamond and Bécaud would work together again, but few could've predicted just how well their next collaboration would turn out. Before the year was over, the pair would have an even bigger hit on their hands, one that took the framework of “September Morn’” and improved on it in every respect.
GRADE: 3/10
BONUS BITS: Kudos to the Netflix serial killer drama Mindhunter for using Neil Diamond as period-appropriate wallpaper, subtle enough for the average viewer to miss entirely. Here’s the Season Two scene featuring “September Morn’,” a neighborhood barbecue, and the usual bored-husband talk about Richard Speck and the Co-ed Killer.