[6] The "catchy pop-rock"[7] song is a medium-tempo waltz performed in 3/4 time at a standard tempo of 102 bpm.

[11] Along with "Love on the Rocks" and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", it is one of the "baritone ballads" that have "60-year-old women erupting in girlish screams;"[12] it makes female audience members shriek[13] and swoon.

[14] According to Melissa Ruggieri, writing for Media General about a 2008 concert, "Diamond [at 67] also still possesses the ability to charm, even though he didn't need to do much except wiggle his prominent eyebrows at women in the crowd to elicit schoolgirl-like squeals—'Play Me,' in particular, had a bizarre aphrodisiac effect.

[18] Diamond himself has referred to those lines, for instance in an apology to a 2008 Columbus, Ohio, audience, for performing with a raspy voice while suffering from acute laryngitis.

argued singer-songwriter David Persons at a symposium on songwriting and creative writing held at Stephen F. Austin University.

In this case the rule has to be "Neil Diamond wrote it, I heard it and that settles it, Brang is in fact a word.