The First Song Neil Diamond Wrote at 16 Was a Doo-Wop Ballad Camouflaged as a Marriage Proposal

In the late 1950s, a teenage Neil Diamond wrote his first song for his then-girlfriend, who would become his first wife, Jayne Posner, who he was married to from 1963 through 1969. The simple doo-wop ballad also had a hidden message, asking for her hand in marriage.

“I really wanted to impress her and I couldn’t afford to buy her a gift,” recalled Diamond, “so I wrote a song called ‘Hear Them Bells’ and basically it was a song saying, ‘Will you marry me?’”

Hear them bells, the story of our love
Hear them bells from up above
My darling, I need you, more each day
I’d be contented dear
If only you would say

I’ll be yours forever, sweetheart
Our love is real, we’ll never ever part
To be with you, love is my one desire
And if you’ll leave me
You’ll set my soul on fire

Videos by American Songwriter

Hear them bells, the story of our love
Hear them bells, the story of our love
Hear them bells, the story’s in their sound
Hear them bells, I’m heaven bound

To be with you, love, is my one desire
And if you’ll leave me
You’ll set my soul on fire
Hear them bells, the story of our love
Hear them bells, the story of our love

Decades passed before Diamond ever recorded “Hear Them Bells,” but he continued to play it live throughout the years before releasing it on his 1996 box set, In My Lifetime.

“I bet each of us here has a first in their lives, they’ll never forget,” said Diamond in the live recording of “Hear Them Bells.” He added, “For some of us it was our first kiss, while for others it was our first Harley-Davidson motorcycle. For me, being a songwriter, it was my very first song. Please forgive me but I’d like to do it for you right now.”

Diamond said writing “Hear Them Bells” helped him realize all the necessaary parts of a song early on. “It was about as dumb as you can get, but it was a song,” said Diamond in a 1972 interview with the New York Times.

“Jesus, it had a melody, and a beginning, and an ending and it rhymed, and it was even pretty in places,” added Diamond. “I’d finally found a means of expression. It was like taking your finger out of the dyke. I wrote night and day, on anything I could find, ‘Shopping bags… ”

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images