"I'm a Believer" is a song composed by Neil Diamond and recorded by The Monkees in 1966 with the lead vocals by Micky Dolenz. The single, produced by Jeff Barry, hit the number-one spot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending December 31, 1966, and remained there for seven weeks,[1] becoming the last No. 1 hit of 1966 and the biggest-selling record for all of 1967. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 5 song for 1967.[2] Because of 1,051,280 advance orders, it went gold within two days of release. It is one of the fewer than forty all-time singles to have sold more than 10 million physical copies worldwide. While originally published by Screen Gems-Columbia Music (BMI), it is now published by Stonebridge Music/EMI Foray Music (SESAC), with administration passed to Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group.
The song was No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart for four weeks in January and February 1967 and reached the top spot in numerous countries, including Australia, New Zealand,[3] Canada, and Ireland.[4]
The song appeared in four consecutive episodes of The Monkees TV show in December 1966.
American pop rock band Smash Mouth covered the song in 2001 as part of the soundtrack to the movie Shrek, along with "All Star". The band also released the song on its self-titled album. Eddie Murphy, portraying the character Donkey, also performed a rendition of the song in the film. The song was chosen for its opening line, "I thought love was only true in fairy tales", which matched the fairy tale theme of the film. Subsequently, the song was played as exit music for the Broadway musical adaptation of the film, for comic effect. (Weezer also had a version of the song at the end of Shrek's 2010 sequel Shrek Forever After, which was inserted into the musical's finale a year into its run.) The Smash Mouth version hit No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top 20 in New Zealand and Spain. In Australia, the cover reached No. 9 on the ARIA Singles Chart, received a Platinum certification for sales exceeding 70,000, and came in at number 36 on ARIA's year-end chart for 2001.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCP7bCJxxm8
