It was in December 1962 that Newman had his next brush with top-40 success, thanks to R&B singer Gene McDaniels' recording of his somber ballad about a Vietnam War soldier titled "Somebody's Waiting" (B-side to McDaniels' "Spanish Lace", Liberty 55510).
By this point, the lustre of the music business was already starting to fade, as Newman told Chuck Marshall in 1978: "I remember being thrilled that Gene McDaniels was going to do this song. And I heard the record and I just hated it..it wasn't what I had in mind at all. So it would take the edge off. It wasn't all that it's cracked up to be." The single performed reasonably well, however, peaking at #32, and earned him the opportunity to write for other artists and labels.