Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man” reached No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1970, four years after Bang Records put it back into circulation. The result gave a 1966 single a second life and turned a song that missed Billboard’s Top 40 on first release into one of Diamond’s signature records.
Diamond called “Solitary Man” his first song where he tried to really raise the level of his songwriting. He said, “Solitary Man” was my first song where I tried to really raise the level of my songwriting, and also described it as the point where his writing changed shape after he had already landed hits such as “I’m a Believer.”
August 1966
In August 1966, The Feel of Neil Diamond came out, and “Solitary Man” served as the first solo single from the album. It did not make Billboard’s Top 40 that year, so the song’s first run looked like a non-event in chart terms even though Diamond had already been working in New York’s Brill Building and had his own record deal with Bang Records.
The track itself was built as an acoustic guitar ballad with horn section and shaker percussion, and its lyrics follow someone walking alone after heartbreak. That arrangement and subject matter gave Diamond a template he kept refining later, rather than a one-off single built to chase a quick chart peak.
Bang Records Reissue
Four years later, Bang Records re-released “Solitary Man,” and the timing changed the song’s commercial arc. The reissue reached No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1970, a climb that shows how a single can fail on its first pass and still break through once the market catches up.
Diamond said the song was inspired by the Beatles’ “Michelle” and added that he probably had never written a song in a minor key before it. That matters here because the hit was not just a delayed sales win; it marked the first time he felt he was stretching as a writer instead of repeating the formula behind earlier songs like “Cherry, Cherry,” “Kentucky Woman,” and “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon.”
Diamond’s Breakthrough
Although Diamond already had hits such as “I’m a Believer,” he said “Solitary Man” was his breakthrough moment as a songwriter. He later said his writing became deeper and more sophisticated over the years while still covering basically the same subjects, which is why the 1970 chart run reads less like a fluke than a delayed recognition of where his craft was headed.
The cleanest takeaway is that Bang Records did not need to invent a new song to give Diamond a larger commercial moment; it simply gave “Solitary Man” another shot, and the audience answered four years late. For readers tracking how catalog songs can age into hits, the unanswered business question is why the label chose that moment to try again.
