If You Know What I Mean

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"If You Know What I Mean"
If You Know What I Mean cover.jpg
Single by Neil Diamond
from the album Beautiful Noise
B-side "Street Life"
ReleasedJune 1976
Genre
Length3:41
Label Columbia Records
Songwriter(s) Neil Diamond
Producer(s) Robbie Robertson
Neil Diamond singles chronology
"The Last Picasso"
(1975)
"If You Know What I Mean"
(1976)
"Don't Think... Feel"
(1976)

"If You Know What I Mean" is a song written and recorded by Neil Diamond. It is a track from Diamond's 1976 album, Beautiful Noise , and was his third number 1 on the Easy Listening chart, where it spent two weeks. "If You Know What I Mean" went to number 1 for two nonconsecutive weeks and peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. [1] In Canada, the song reached number 19 on the pop singles chart [2] and hit number 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. [3]

Contents

Background

Billboard described "If You Know What I Mean" as a "powerful ballad", stating that Diamond sings with more emotion than he had in the recent past, and also praised Robbie Robertson's production. [4] Cash Box said that the song "has a couple of diverse, yet distinct musical moods" and that "the chorus, underscored by a first class string section, builds the song up to an emotional peak." [5]

Diamond has stated that the song is a "tender recollection" of a relationship in his teens, in which he successfully seduced a significantly older woman. [6]

Chart history

See also

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  5. "CashBox Singles Reviews" (PDF). Cash Box. June 12, 1976. p. 16. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
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