Diamond did the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which was a very successful book, but a disastrous movie. In the liner notes to Diamond's In My Lifetime collection, he states, "I didn't have the vaguest idea how to write songs from a seagull's point of view, so I turned it down. Then I thought a little more and decided to do it. I figured nobody else had more insight into writing for a seagull, so why not?"

Diamond did a lot of soul-searching to understand the seagull in the film. His songs were getting more philosophical, and this reflected his spiritual search as well. David Wild, author of He Is...I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond, calls the song "A 6-minute flight of pure existentialism."

Diamond spoke about his experience working on the film in his Behind The Music: "The process itself - the writing and the understanding that you had to come to - was also an interesting part of my life, and also reflects my idea of self-improvement and moving on and not necessarily traveling with the flock. It was a great experience."