Anthony McCarten on how he wrote “America” into the Neil Diamond musical

We asked Anthony McCarten (Book Writer) to share some insight on his writing process for including Neil Diamond’s song “America” into the Neil Diamond musical.

Below are his answers.

How did you decide to use “America” in A Beautiful Noise?

Anthony: There was no doubt in my mind that I would use this. Firstly, because it is one of the most iconic songs, but more than that, because it speaks to the underlying theme that we not only carry our younger selves with us when we age but also that we carry the past, our living forebears and even our ancestral dead. 

In A Beautiful Noise, the song “America” occurs later in this story and is primarily featuring Neil Diamond – Now in a musical number for the first time in our show. Why did you choose to use “America” at that moment?

Anthony: The show is a slow process of Neil revealing deeper and deeper layers of himself, and at the deepest level we deal, in the show’s climactic build, with his inheritance from history, in particular his Jewish diaspora history, with its personality-shaping forces that are regaled finally to be at work on him still. 

What did you learn about Neil Diamond through the storytelling and history within his song “America”?

Anthony: I learned that he owes a great debt to the past and that he is fully appreciative of the fact. America, as he reveals, is a sanctuary, a land of opportunity that in the near past and even today serves as a repository of hope for so, so many.