At sixteen, while most teens were just trying to survive high school and first crushes, Neil Diamond was already putting his feelings into music. Long before stadiums echoed with Sweet Caroline, Neil was simply a Brooklyn boy with a guitar, a notebook, and a love that felt like forever.
That love was Jayne Posner — his high school sweetheart. For her, Neil wrote his very first song. It wasn’t meant for record labels or radio play. It was just a young man’s private ballad, a simple gift from the heart.
💬 “It wasn’t much,” Neil later admitted with a shy smile. “But it was honest. And at sixteen, that’s all I had to give.”
A Teenager with a Song in His Heart
Picture him then: a wiry teen scribbling lyrics in his Brooklyn bedroom while his parents thought he was studying. His chords may have been rough, but his sincerity was crystal clear. Every word was written for Jayne — the girl who would later become his first wife.
That ballad never made the charts, but it unlocked something deeper: the realization that music wasn’t just a hobby for Neil. It was who he was.
From First Love to First Muse
Neil and Jayne’s romance grew through those tender teenage years. They later married in the early 1960s, but like many young loves, it didn’t last. Fame, ambition, and the challenges of the music world eventually pulled them apart.
Yet Jayne’s place in Neil’s life has never disappeared. She wasn’t only his first wife — she was the first person to inspire him to put pen to paper. The first believer. The first muse.
💬 “Love doesn’t always last,” Neil once reflected. “But the memory of it — those first feelings — that never leaves.”
The Echo of Jayne in His Music
That first song may never be heard, but its spirit lingers in everything Neil created afterward. The yearning of Love on the Rocks, the tenderness of Hello Again, the storytelling of Play Me — all of it carries the fingerprints of a boy who once wrote a love ballad for the girl he couldn’t imagine losing.
For Neil, Jayne wasn’t just part of the story. She was the prologue.
Looking Back at 84
Now, at 84 and living with Parkinson’s disease, Neil spends more time reflecting than performing. His voice is softer, his movements slower, but when asked about the beginning of it all, his thoughts return to Jayne and that very first song.
It’s not about nostalgia — it’s about gratitude. Gratitude for the love that gave him his first melody. Gratitude for the moment that revealed his destiny.
The First Note That Started It All
For the world, Neil Diamond is the man behind America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and of course Sweet Caroline. But for Jayne Posner, once upon a time, he was simply a teenage boy writing her a love song — raw, imperfect, but real.
And maybe, just maybe, that song — never recorded or performed — is the most important one he ever wrote. Because it wasn’t about fame, money, or legacy.
It was about love.
And even though their love didn’t last, its melody still lingers — in Neil’s music, in his memories, and in the story of a legend who built a lifetime of songs from one fragile, beautiful beginning.
✨ Sometimes the most powerful song is the one the world never hears.