The song was written by Neil Diamond and Robbie Robertson (from "The Band") and was included on Neil's 1976 "Beautiful Noise" album (also produced by Robertson).
The song itself was written as a homage to the asassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
Diamond was invited by Robertson to perform the song during The Band's final concert on November 25, 1976 at Bill Graham's Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.
The concert was being filmed for what was to become a critically acclaimed rockumentary that was directed by Martin Scorsese entitled "The Last Waltz" (1978).
Diamond, at first, was hesitant to participate as he felt he did not necessarily fit in with the other guest performers which included Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, and many others whose music was mostly played on FM radio at the time while Diamond was an AM radio favorite.
However, Robertson was persuasive enough to convince Neil to perform the song - which he did to a very appreciative and responsive audience.
Diamond never performed the song again until 2017 for what was to become (unbeknownst to him at the time) his last world tour.
He dedicated the song to the victims of catastrophic events occuring at the time such as the "senseless bombings in Paris, France and Manchester, England".
After Neil's retirement in early 2018, I started adding the song to my "Neil Diamond - The Tribute" shows and eventually created this video that extended on the song's original inspiration so that it now paid homage to certain, well known, turbulent events that occured during the last century or so.