| "I'm a Believer" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by The Monkees | ||||
| from the album More of The Monkees | ||||
| B-side | "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" | |||
| Released | November 21, 1966 | |||
| Genre | Pop rock | |||
| Length | 2:47 | |||
| Label | Colgems Records | |||
| Writer(s) | Neil Diamond | |||
| Producer | Jeff Barry | |||
| The Monkees singles chronology | ||||
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"I'm a Believer" is a song composed by Neil Diamond and recorded by The Monkees in 1966 with the lead vocals by Micky Dolenz. The single, produced by Jeff Barry, hit the number one spot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending December 31, 1966 and remained there for seven weeks, becoming the last #1 hit of 1966 and the biggest-selling record for all of 1967. Because of 1,051,280 advance orders, it went gold within two days of release. It is one of the fewer than thirty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) copies worldwide.
Neil Diamond had already recorded this song before it was covered by The Monkees, and it still sometimes appears in his live concerts. A revised recording by Neil Diamond, featuring additional lyrics, appears on the album September Morn, while his original recording can be found on several albums, including his greatest hits album, The Essential Neil Diamond. Neil Diamond also suggested it to The Fifth Estate who recorded it as a 1967 album cut to follow up their hit "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead". The Monkees' recording kept the novelty hit, "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" by The Royal Guardsmen, at number two for four weeks, from reaching the Hot 100's summit.
A cover by British singer-songwriter Robert Wyatt was an unlikely hit in the UK in 1974, with a version featuring Fred Frith on violin, Andy Summers (later of The Police) on guitar, and drums by Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, who also produced the recording. It was Wyatt's first recording after the accident which left him a paraplegic.
In 1995, British comedian Vic Reeves teamed up with then-popular band EMF for a version which reached #3 on the UK singles chart.
The Neil Diamond version was featured in the Coen brothers' film "Blood Simple" in its US home video version, but was later replaced by the Four Tops "It's the Same Old Song," which was the original choice for the film.
This song was also covered by Smash Mouth and Eddie Murphy in 2001, as part of the soundtrack to the movie Shrek (the band also released the song on its self-titled album). Eddie Murphy, portraying the character "Donkey", also performed a rendition of the song in the film. The song was chosen for its opening line, "I thought love was only true in fairy tales," which matched the fairy tale theme of the film. Subsequently, the song was played as exit music for the Broadway musical adaptation of the film, for comic effect. A year into the show's run, it was inserted into its finale. A nod to the version by Reeves & Mortimer with EMF is included in Shrek; though the "Oi!" does not appear in any album version of Smash Mouth's cover, it is inserted into the song when it is played in the film's finale, shouted by Snow White's Seven Dwarfs. A different cover, by Weezer, appears in Shrek Forever After.
In 2008, this song ranked #1 on Dallas station KLUV 98.7FM's Top 500 Memorial Day Countdown, as voted on by the listeners. The song is listed at #48 on Billboard's All Time Top 100. [1]
In 2010, Neil Diamond recorded a stripped down, slow tempo version of the song on his Dreams album, and Paije Richardson performed an I'm a Believer/Hey Ya! mash-up on series seven of The X Factor.
| Preceded by "Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single December 31, 1966 (seven weeks) |
Succeeded by "Kind of a Drag" by The Buckinghams |
| Preceded by "Green, Green Grass of Home" by Tom Jones |
UK number one single 19 January 1967 (four weeks) |
Succeeded by "This Is My Song" by Petula Clark |