By MICHAEL BAGINSKI/ If you’ve ever been to Fenway Park in Boston, home of the Red Sox baseball team (see previous story, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”), you’d know that the crowd sings “Sweet Caroline” each game after the 8th inning. That’s close to 38,000 people rendering the Neil Diamond classic into one of the world’s largest karaoke singalongs.
The tradition started innocently enough in 1997 when a team employee played the song in honour of a friend who had a baby named Caroline. By 2002, the singalong was permanent. Diamond himself even made an appearance to join in in 2022.
The song, of course, is sung by many people in many other settings, complete with the ubiquitous ba, ba, bas and so good, so goods, but nowhere with such gusto and sense of purpose as at Fenway, the song’s adopted home.
Here’s an original rendition – “where it began” as it were – from the Ed Sullivan show in 1969, sounding strange, I must confess, without those annoying ad libs.
Lyrics
Where it began
I can’t begin to knowin’
But then I know it’s growin’ strong
Was in the spring
And spring became the summer
Who’d have believed you’d come along
Hands, touchin’ hands
Reachin’ out, touchin’ me, touchin’ you
Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I’ve been inclined
To believe they never would
But now I…
…look at the night
And it don’t seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two
And when I hurt
Hurtin’ runs off my shoulders
How can I hurt when holdin’ you?
Warm, touchin’ warm
Reachin’ out, touchin’ me, touchin’ you
Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I’ve been inclined
To believe they never would
Oh, no, no
Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
Sweet Caroline
I believed they never could
Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
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