He walked away from medical school with $50 in his pocket to chase an impossible dream—and wrote the song that would make stadiums sing for 60 years.
Brooklyn, 1960.
Neil Diamond sat in his NYU dorm room, supposedly studying for his pre-med finals. His parents—humble Jewish immigrants who’d sacrificed everything—were counting on him to become a doctor. Security. Stability. The American Dream.
But Neil couldn’t focus on anatomy textbooks. His mind kept drifting to the melody he’d been humming all week. His fingers kept reaching for his guitar instead of his stethoscope.
That night, he made a choice that terrified him.
He dropped out of medical school. Walked away from the scholarship. Left behind his parents’ dreams and his own guaranteed future.
For what? A job writing songs at Sunbeam Music Publishing for $50 a week.
His parents were devastated. His friends thought he was crazy. He had no backup plan, no connections, no certainty that he’d ever make it.
For six years, he lived on hope and stubbornness. Writing songs nobody wanted. Playing gigs nobody attended. Wondering if he’d made the biggest mistake of his life.
Then 1966 happened.
A song he’d written—”I’m a Believer”—became one of the biggest hits of the decade. Not for him, but for The Monkees. Suddenly, the kid from Brooklyn who’d gambled everything was being played on every radio in America.
But Neil wasn’t done.
He wanted people to hear HIS voice telling HIS stories. So he kept writing. “Solitary Man.” “Cherry, Cherry.” “Cracklin’ Rosie.”
And then, in 1969, he wrote eight simple words that would become bigger than he ever imagined:
“Sweet Caroline… good times never seemed so good.”
Nobody knows for certain who Caroline really was. Some say Caroline Kennedy. Others say it was about his wife. Neil himself has changed the story over the years, almost like he knew the song needed to belong to everyone, not just to him.
Because that’s exactly what happened.
“Sweet Caroline” became the song couples slow-danced to at weddings. The song crowds screamed at baseball games. The song that brought together complete strangers in bars, concert halls, and living rooms across the world.
For over five decades, Neil Diamond gave us the soundtrack to our lives. More than 130 million records sold. A legacy that touched four generations.
In 2018, his voice began to fail him. Parkinson’s disease forced him off the touring stage—the place where he’d felt most alive for 50 years.
He could have disappeared quietly. Retired in peace.
Instead, he keeps writing. Keeps creating. Keeps proving that the fire that made a 20-year-old drop out of medical school never really goes out.
The kid who risked everything on a dream didn’t just make it.
He made us all believe that impossible dreams are worth chasing.
Because sometimes, the biggest risk isn’t following your heart.
It’s spending your whole life wondering what would’ve happened if you had.