“Soolaimon” feels like a warm greeting and a gentle farewell at once—an earthly chant reaching for peace, belonging, and the courage to begin again.
When Neil Diamond released “Soolaimon (African Trilogy II)” in 1970, it arrived not as a conventional pop single, but as a small, daring left turn—one that still managed to find a wide audience. On the Billboard Hot 100, it peaked at No. 30, and it did even better on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart, reaching No. 5. Internationally, it travelled well: No. 7 in Canada, No. 23 in Australia, No. 22 in Germany, and No. 14 in New Zealand—quietly proving that something “different” could still feel immediately familiar.
Those numbers matter, because they underline the song’s special kind of success: “Soolaimon” wasn’t built like a radio-jingle hit. It’s tied to a larger artistic idea—“The African Trilogy” on Diamond’s experimental album Tap Root Manuscript (released October 15, 1970), where rock songwriting is braided with African-themed sounds and instruments and a conceptual, suite-like ambition. In other words, this wasn’t just a single; it was a doorway into a broader world Diamond was trying to build—one where pop could carry myth, rhythm, and atmosphere, not merely melody.
And then there is that title—so unforgettable, so singable, so mysterious. “Soolaimon” was intended as a variation of “Salamah,” a word associated with meanings like “hello,” “welcome,” “good-bye,” and “peace be with you.” That alone explains why the song lingers in the heart: it isn’t locked into one emotion. It holds the whole cycle—arrival and departure, the open door and the closing one, the ache of leaving and the grace of being received. Many songs choose a single feeling and press it hard. “Soolaimon” chooses something older and rounder: the feeling that life keeps turning, and we learn to bless each turning as it comes.
Musically, the track works like a spell you don’t mind falling under. The structure leans into repetition—not as laziness, but as ritual. The chorus becomes a communal pulse, the kind you can imagine echoing in a crowded hall: voices joining, hands keeping time, the body remembering the rhythm before the mind has even named it. On Tap Root Manuscript, Diamond called the suite a kind of “folk ballet,” and that phrase fits: “Soolaimon” moves—physically, emotionally—like a dance that tells its story through insistence rather than explanation.
What makes it especially poignant is how it balances the “faraway” with the intimate. The African-inspired framing gives the song a horizon—something wide, sunlit, and mythic—yet Diamond’s voice keeps pulling it back to the personal, to a human-sized longing. It’s the sound of someone stepping outside his usual room, then turning back to see who is following. Even the industry press noticed the strangeness (and the courage) of the approach: Cash Box praised Diamond’s sophisticated swing toward “primitivism,” while Record World remarked on how “far out” Diamond was getting with it. Not insults—recognition that he was moving beyond the expected.
The story behind “Soolaimon” isn’t just about chart performance or studio experimentation. It’s about a songwriter—already famous for his direct emotional line—choosing to express something universal in a language that’s partly invented, partly borrowed, and wholly felt. A greeting. A blessing. A goodbye that doesn’t slam the door. A welcome that doesn’t ask questions. In a restless era, “Soolaimon” offered a steady rhythm and a word that could mean peace—and sometimes, that is the most radical kind of pop music: not the song that shocks you, but the one that quietly teaches your heartbeat to slow down and listen.