Neil Diamond

And because of that hit, the people who were producing The Monkees called and said, we like Cherry Cherry.

Do you have any other songs?

I said, well, I don't have anything like Cherry Cherry, but I have an album coming out soon and I'll send it over and take your pick.

Oh, yeah, no question about it.

But it was not only in the sense of the monkeys doing a couple of songs.

It was in the sense that the doors began to open for songwriters who were able to sing.

And I just happened to be one of them who'd been...

knocking around the streets for years, and now suddenly was getting a new and fresh listening to my work.

So the Beatles made an enormous change, as did Bob Dylan.

They brought the songwriter up to the front of the line and said, you know, you guys do it.

And it had a devastating effect on the music publishing business.

in Tin Pan Alley, but it opened up many doors for people like me.

I thought love was only true in fairy tales Meant for someone else

And I'm a believer I couldn't leave her if I tried.

Behind the song was pretty basic.

I was playing mostly to teenagers, teenage girls, when I first started.

And so going through that period, I just wrote a song for the...

for the audience to do, uh, for me to do in the show and for the audience, uh, which was, as I say, teenage girls and girl, you'll be a woman soon was something I wrote for them and, uh, I recorded it myself.

Well, first they have to request, uh, the right to use it.

Uh,