Neil Diamond's 'I Am... I Said' inspired Clint Eastwood's empty chair speech

Legendary actor and movie director Clint Eastwood spoke a bit more about his famous speech delivered at the Republican National Convention last August when he spoke to an empty chair with an invisible President Barack Obama (not) in the chair. According to Eastwood who spoke about his inspiration for the empty chair routine off-camera with CNBC’s Becky Quick on Friday, he said the idea came from Neil Diamond’s classic song “I Am… I Said.”

According to Quick, Eastwood said that he was in his hotel room prior to his mystery-speaker guest spot at the RNC when he heard the oldie-but-goodie recording which was written and performed by singer Neil Diamond. Within the lyric, Diamond croons the words: ”I am, I said, to no one there. And no one heard at all, not even the chair.”

While Eastwood revealed this information off-camera, on-camera he admitted that his empty chair speech seemed odd at the time. The actor excused himself for doing something odd because, he said, “I’m an odd person.” He went on to say that he can get away with doing odd things because he’s in the senior status in life.

Neil Diamond: "I Am... I Said"Neil Diamond: "I Am... I Said"

During the on-camera interview, he also sent media-waves by talking about the lack of progress among politicians in the nation’s capital.

Eastwood said of the Washington, D.C. gridlock:

It’s almost like they don’t give a damn. If they don’t give a damn, why did they expect anybody else to?

Eastwood went on to say that he’s very disappointed with the lack of accomplishments coming from the elected United States politicians. In the last presidential election, he supported Mitt Romney.