Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend
The Andy Warhol Diaries“Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” appears in Andy Warhol’s diary as a song turned up to top volume during an anxious night in Paris. Its place in the scene is specific: while Warhol waits for a call from Jon Gould that he believes will never come, the music intensifies an already crowded, unwelcome evening.
The Song in the Paris Night
On April 2, 1981, Warhol had called Jon Gould in California after Christopher encouraged him to do so. Gould was said to be in a meeting and expected to call back, but Warhol sat waiting, dozed off, and felt sure the phone had not rung. When Fred Hughes arrived with a group of noisy companions, Hughes played “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” at top volume. Warhol, desperate over Gould’s silence, felt close to breaking under the noise; the visitors stayed until four in the morning.
Function in the Scene
The song is not discussed as a performance or interpreted by Warhol; it registers as part of the room’s overwhelming sound. Its glamorous promise of diamonds as a reliable friend contrasts with the uncertainty of the call he is waiting for, without relieving his distress. In the diary’s sequence, the loud music marks the intrusion of Fred Hughes’s gathering into a private vigil and sharpens the contrast between public noise and Warhol’s isolation.
