"Cracklin' Rosie" is a song written and recorded by
Neil Diamond
Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. He has sold more than 130 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 and Adul ...
in 1970, with instrumental backing by Los Angeles session musicians from the Wrecking Crew, including
Hal Blaine
Hal Blaine (born Harold Simon Belsky; February 5, 1929 – March 11, 2019) was an American drummer and session musician, thought to be among the most recorded studio drummers in the music industry, claiming over 35,000 sessions and 6,000 singles. ...
on drums,
Larry Knechtel
Lawrence William Knechtel (August 4, 1940 – August 20, 2009) was an American keyboard player and bassist who was a member of the Wrecking Crew, a collection of Los Angeles-based session musicians who worked with such renowned artists as Simon & ...
on keyboards,
Joe Osborn
Joseph Osborn (August 28, 1937 – December 14, 2018Al Casey on guitar and
Gene Estes
The Wrecking Crew was a loose collective of Los Angeles-based session musicians whose services were employed for a great number of studio recordings in the 1960s and 1970s, including hundreds of top 40 hits. The musicians were not publicly rec ...
on percussion – arranged by
Don Randi
Don Randi (born February 25, 1937) is an American keyboard player, bandleader, and songwriter who was a member of the Wrecking Crew.
Career
Randi was born February 25, 1937 in New York City. He was raised in the Catskill Mountains and studied c ...
. The song was included on Diamond's album ''
Tap Root Manuscript
''Tap Root Manuscript'' is the sixth studio album recorded by Neil Diamond, released in October 1970. It was one of the most experimental albums he ever recorded, featuring rock music fused with prominent African sounds and instruments. The album ...
''. In October 1970 the song became Diamond's first American No. 1 hit within the Billboard Hot 100, and his third to sell a million copies. It was his breakthrough single on the UK Singles Chart, reaching No. 3 for four weeks in November and December. ''Billboard'' ranked the record as the No. 17 song of 1970. It also reached No. 2 in both the Australian Singles Chart and the Irish Singles Chart. Its best performance was in New Zealand, where it stayed at No. 1 for five weeks at the end of the year.
The single version released by
Uni Records
Uni Records (short for the label's legal name Universal City Records and rendered as UNI) was a record label owned by MCA Inc. The brand, which long featured a distinctive UNi logo, was established in 1966 in music, 1966 by MCA executive Ned Tanen ...
was in
mono
Mono may refer to:
Common meanings
* Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease"
* Monaural, monophonic sound reproduction, often shortened to mono
* Mono-, a numerical prefix representing anything single
Music Performers
* Mono (Japanes ...
, while the album version from ''Tap Root Manuscript'' was in
stereo
Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...
.
Song meaning
Married to a catchy and dynamic melody and arrangement, the lyrics suggested to some a devotion to a woman of the night:
The stories about how Diamond was inspired to write the song are apocryphal. "Crackling Rosé" is the name of an inexpensive sparkling
wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented grapes. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different ...
once produced by Andres Wines of British Columbia, Canada, which was popular among the Indigenous population. One story suggests that Diamond heard a story about a
native Canadian
In Canada, Indigenous groups comprise the First Nations in Canada, First Nations, Inuit and Métis people in Canada, Métis. Although ''Indian'' is a term still commonly used in legal documents, the descriptors ''Indian'' and ''Eskimo'' have fal ...
tribe while doing an interview in Toronto, Canada—the tribe had more men than women, so the lonely men of the tribe would sit around the fire and drink their wine together—which inspired him to write the song. pp. 70–71.
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Cover versions
Mexican
Mexican may refer to:
Mexico and its culture
*Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America
** People
*** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants
*** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...
Spanish language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the ...
version of the song, titled "''Rosa marchita''" (English: "Withered rose"). The lyrics of this version depart from the original Neil Diamond lyrics, instead telling a story about a lost love. This version topped the charts in Mexico in 1971.