Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, a song written over 50 years ago about the daughter of a former US president, has become the unofficial anthem of the Britain team at Euro 2020. And it isn’t the sole pop song to possess been adopted by England fans. “I’ve never seen anything like it!” cried former England footballer Micah Richards on BBC Radio 5 survive Wednesday. Over on ITV, another former England player-turned-pundit, Gary Neville, soaked up the joyful atmosphere in Wembley Stadium and declared: “This is one among the simplest experiences I believe I’ve had in football.” They weren’t speaking after England’s men qualified for his or her first major final since 1966. They were talking before the semi-final when 60,000 people were belting out Sweet Caroline because the teams prepared to require to the pitch. A couple of hours later, the song blasted out of the speakers again, and at this point, the entire squad linked arms and jumped up and down as they joined within the euphoric chorus. Somehow, a song first released by an American soft rock ‘n’ roll musician in 1969 has suddenly been adopted as England’s new sporting anthem. “There are certain songs that you just go, ‘I completely get why this can be being sung en bloc,'” says actor Steve Furst, who performs a Neil Diamond tribute act. “And a song like Sweet Caroline is in no way a surprise because the Diamond appeal is that he doesn’t overcomplicate anything. That very simple sing-along chorus just makes it perfect, and everybody knows it.” Paul Carr, professor in popular music genre analysis at the University of South Wales, who wrote a recent article about what makes an excellent tournament anthem, adds: “It’s a song that’s got plenty of nostalgic resonance for several of the folks that sing it. “The big thing is the simplicity of the melody, and there is something within the lyrics.” Simple but emotive phrases like “Good times never felt so good” and “Reaching out, touching me, touching you” is as well as the anticipatory build-up, resulting in a rousing chorus. that each one makes it a feel-good communal sing-along – especially after over a year of lockdowns and social distancing. Diamond has said he actually wrote the love song about his wife Marcia, but her name didn’t fit the tune. However, he had remembered a magazine photo he had seen of Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of John F Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy. His song reached number four within the US chart and number eight within the UK and has become a staple of Diamond’s live shows. But the primary hint of its potential as a sporting crowd-pleaser came within the late 1990s when it had been played during a Boston Red Sox ball for an employee who had named her newborn Caroline. The Red Sox decided it absolutely was good luck and began playing it weekly from 2003. In 2013, the singer pledged all future royalties from the tune to a charity supporting victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. Other teams on either side of the Atlantic began to adopt it, from the NFL’s Carolina Panthers to the Northern Irish football side. Arsenal played it after their 2017 FA Cup semi-final victory, and it’s also been claimed by fans of Aston Villa and therefore the Castleford Tigers rugby league side. Meanwhile, the Britain cricket team celebrated their 2019 tourney victory with a rendition, and boxer Tyson Fury has used it to rousing effect. It’s far from the primary pop song to search out a replacement lease of life during a sports stadium. Liverpool FC’s anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone was written for the hit musical Carousel, while Scotland fans have claimed 1977 hit Yes Sir, I Can Boogie. Why do Scotland fans sing Yes Sir, I Can Boogie? After England’s Euro 2020 quarter-final convince Germany, Wembley DJ Tony Parry said he went along with his instinct to play Sweet Caroline rather than Fat Les’s 1998 tournament anthem Vindaloo. He told TalkSport: “I was visiting play Vindaloo, but went with my gut. Even the German fans were belting it comes in the top. it is a song that everyone fan can enjoy. “The match director said in my in-ear, ‘The world’s been closed for 18 months… let ’em have it.” Sweet Caroline has even threatened to eclipse Three Lions because of the England fans’ song of choice at the pandemic-delayed tournament. “I thought Sweet Caroline went slightly better than Three Lions within the post-match sing-song,” Three Lions co-writer Frank Skinner noted after the Germany game. “I felt like we’d beat Germany and lost to Neil Diamond in time beyond regulation.” How Three Lions became the definitive England song Three Lions was originally penned as England’s official track for Euro 96 by Skinner, fellow comedian David Baddiel and also the Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie, who captured the football-fevered dreams of a number nation starved of success. A firm fan favorite by the time England thrillingly progressed to the semi-finals – only to gallantly lose to Germany on penalties when current England manager Gareth Southgate, then a player, saw his spot-kick saved – the song’s refrain of “30 years of hurt” could equally eulogize glorious failure. The track has continued to ingrain itself in culture, topping the charts on a record four separate occasions, last during England’s 2018 World Cup run, before soundtracking the side on this summer’s run to the ultimate. But with Sweet Caroline now getting such an enormous raucous reaction, news of its popularity has even reached 80-year-old Diamond himself, who told The Telegraph he was “thrilled” at the scenes. He also sent a decent luck message to the players before Wednesday’s semi-final. The England squad has certainly thrived within the atmosphere it creates. “You can’t beat a small amount of Neil Diamond,” Southgate told ITV before Wednesday’s game. “It’s just an extremely joyous song, I think, that brings people together.”
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