![]() ![]() "He did it his way," Diamond told The Sunday Guardian in 2011. Diamond rates Ol’ Blue Eyes’ version the best of the bunch. In the decade that followed, it was covered by Elvis Presley, soul great Bobby Womack, Roy Orbison, and Frank Sinatra. Released in 1969, "Sweet Caroline" rose to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. I tried ‘Sweet Caroline,’ and that worked." "So I had Caroline Kennedy’s name from years ago in one of my books. "I couldn’t get Marsha into the three-syllable name I needed,” Diamond said. The plot thickened in 2014, however, as Diamond told the gang at NBC’s TODAY that the song is really about his first wife, Marsha. "I thought she might be embarrassed, but she seemed to be struck by it and really, really happy." "I’m happy to have gotten it off my chest and to have expressed it to Caroline," Diamond said. Perhaps because it’s a little creepy, Diamond kept that tidbit to himself for years and only broke the news after performing the song at Kennedy’s 50th birthday in 2007. ![]() "It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there.” Years later, in that Memphis hotel room, the song was finally born. "It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony," Diamond told the Associated Press. Kennedy, that he saw in a magazine in the early ‘60s, when he was a "young, broke songwriter." In 2007, Diamond revealed that he was inspired to write the song by a photograph of Caroline Kennedy, daughter of John F. The "who," as in the identity of the "Caroline" immortalized in the lyrics, is the much juicier question. He’d also written "I’m a Believer," which The Monkees took to #1 in late 1966. ![]() ![]() By this point in his career, Diamond had established himself as a fairly well-known singer-songwriter with two top-10 hits-"Cherry Cherry" and "Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon"-to his name. Except the "where" part of this story is actually pretty simple: Diamond wrote "Sweet Caroline" in a Memphis hotel room in 1969 on the eve of a recording session at American Sound Studio. "Where it began, I can’t begin to knowing," Diamond sings in the song’s iconic opening lines. It’s pop’s answer to the national anthem, and as any karaoke belter or Boston Red Sox fan will tell you, it’s way easier to sing than "The Star-Spangled Banner." As the song celebrates its 50th birthday this year, now’s a good time-so good, so good, so good-to dig into the rich history of a tune people will still be singing in 2069. With close to thirty albums and now ranked third in adult contemporary top hits (trailing behind Barbara Streisand and Elton John), Diamond continues to tour successfully and doesn’t look like he’ll be leaving the spotlight anytime soon.The story of Neil Diamond’s "Sweet Caroline" has it all: love, baseball, Kennedys, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, and the triumph of the human spirit. Over the years, his songs have been covered by a range of artists, including Coldplay, Dave Matthews, The Foo Fighters and the cast of Glee. Since his appearance on the show, Diamond continued to churn out hit after hit. Luckily though, we have these classic performances preserved forever. Perhaps it was too difficult to schedule him in the remaining months before the series ended. Though the performance was a huge success, it surprisingly turned out to be Diamond’s only performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. “Holly Holy” also spent 12 weeks on the charts and peaked at #6. “Sweet Caroline” was on the charts for 12 weeks and peaked at #4. These two songs ended up becoming his two biggest hits that year. Behind him were an army of seemingly careless flower children, dancing to the beat of the song and climbing the rainbow colored stairs surrounding Neil. After an incredibly quick break and re-introduction from Sullivan, Diamond returned to sing “Holly Holy” on top of a multi-colored pyramid. He performed his hit “Sweet Caroline” sitting on a stool in front of an audience full of swooning. On November 30th 1969, Diamond debuted on The Ed Sullivan Show. Diamond wrote songs that were recorded by Elvis Presley, The Monkees, Cliff Richard and others, while at the same time building his own singing career. He attended NYU on a fencing scholarship and was in pre-med classes, but when the famous Brill Building offered to pay him for writing songs, he abandoned college. Born in 1941 in Brooklyn, Diamond would go from humble beginnings to become a pop icon known worldwide. ![]()
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