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In 2007, Neil Diamond revealed that this song is about Caroline Kennedy, who is the daughter of the American president John F. Kennedy. After performing the song via satellite at Caroline's 50th birthday party, he told the Associated Press: "I've never discussed it with anybody before - intentionally. I thought maybe I would tell it to Caroline when I met her someday. I'm happy to have gotten it off my chest and to have expressed it to Caroline. I thought she might be embarrassed, but she seemed to be struck by it and really, really happy."
Diamond added that he was a young, broke songwriter in the '60s when he saw a cute photo of Caroline Kennedy in a magazine. Said Diamond: "It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony. It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there." A few years later, Diamond wrote the song in a Memphis hotel in less than an hour. Caroline was 11 years old when the song was released.
David Wild wrote in his book
He Is...I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond, "Diamond says that 'Sweet Caroline' just seemed to come out of 'the excitement of the moment.' More specifically, Diamond's excitement seemed to focus on a chord in the song's 'touching hands' section, a relatively unusual A6 chord that he had never played before."
Even though the song has nothing to do with Boston, the Red Sox, baseball or New England, it is played at Red Sox home games in Fenway Park before the Red Sox bat in the the 8th inning. Amy Tobey, who worked the music at Fenway, first started playing the song in 1997 - it's often reported that she played it in honor of a Red Sox employee who named her newborn daughter "Caroline," but Tobey told NPR that she simply liked the song. It caught on with the fans, becoming a popular selection between innings. When Charles Steinberg took over as Red Sox executive vice president of public affairs in 2002, he championed the song, and instituted it as an 8th inning ritual (strategically placed before the Sox come up to bat late in the game), where it has been played ever since. Caroline Kennedy even attended a game that year, which was before Neil Diamond revealed her as the inspiration.
The song is an audience participation number in that the crowd sings "dum-dum-dum" after the words "Sweet Caroline" in the chorus and "so good, so good, so good" after "good times never seemed so good," assisted by the music director who ducks the song down at this point so the crowd sounds louder. This Fenway ritual is portrayed in the Drew Barrymore/Jimmy Fallon movie Fever Pitch.
Neil Diamond told AOL Music Canada that Frank Sinatra's version of this with a big band is his favorite of all the covers of his material. He explained: "He did it his way. He didn't cop my record at all. I've heard that song by a lot of people and there are a lot of good versions. But Sinatra's swinging, big band version tops them all by far." Other artists to record the song include Waylon Jennings, The Drifters, Julio Iglesias and Elvis Presley.
According to Diamond, this song was divinely inspired. "I think there's a little bit of God in that song. I always have felt that, he told the Los Angeles Times in 2013. "There's no accounting for what can happen to a song."
Diamond recorded this song during his very first recording session, which was in Memphis with producers Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman. He had a standard three-hour session booked, but only two songs written at a time when at least three was the norm. The night before, he quickly wrote "Sweet Caroline" in his motel room so he would have his third song. Diamond says it was one of the fastest songs he ever wrote.
After the bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, the New York Yankees - rivals of the Red Sox - began playing this song as a show of support for the city of Boston. On April 20, Diamond made a surprise appearance at Fenway Park where he performed the song in its traditional 8th inning timeslot. Diamond, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just two days earlier, appeared in street clothes rather than his usual lustrous performance garb as he led the crowd in a full version of the song.
This song is fun, familiar, and easy to sing, which has made it one of the most popular Karaoke songs of all time. It goes over especially well where alcohol is served, since passable renditions are possible even after a few drinks.
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sound better in Yankee Stadium
then Fenway Park....Go Yankees...
But Sweet Caroline is one of my favorite songs that he sings.
Others are just OK!
The cool thing was the North Carolina Marching Band played Sweet Caroline, after Davidson had upset Georgetown in Raleigh, North Carolina as a tribute to the team, as they came back out for the UNC game! Pretty classy band there.
Hi Mike, it's the middle of the 6th inning, but only when the Nationals are winning (which, unfortunately, can be a rare occurance). They call the inning break the "Sweet Sixth" and play this song.
"I've never discussed it with anybody before -- intentionally," the 66-year-old singer-songwriter told The Associated Press on Monday during a break from recording. "I thought maybe I would tell it to Caroline when I met her someday."
He got his chance last week when he performed the song via satellite at Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg's 50th birthday party.
Diamond was a "young, broke songwriter" when a photo of the president's daughter in a news magazine caught his eye.
"It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony," Diamond recalled. "It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there."
Years later, holed up in a hotel in Memphis, he would write the words and music in less an hour.
"It was a No. 1 record and probably is the biggest, most important song of my career, and I have to thank her for the inspiration," he said. "I'm happy to have gotten it off my chest and to have expressed it to Caroline. I thought she might be embarrassed, but she seemed to be struck by it and really, really happy."
I was just at a Red Sox game and the fans really get into singing this song.