Neil Diamond has said that he will donate the royalties from recent sales of “Sweet Caroline” to a fund created for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.
The 72-year-old singer and songwriter, whose song has been an eighth-inning staple since 2002 — but has been played at Fenway Park since 1997 — made the announcement on Twitter, writing, “Donating these royalties to #OneFund! RT “@Nielsen_Ent: ‘Sweet Caroline’ sales up by 597 percent, selling 19K after Boston bombings.”
The sales were were up from 2,800 the week before, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The song was No. 33 on the Pop Digital Songs chart during the week ending April 21.
“Sweet Caroline” was released as a single on June 28, 1969, but the song has seen a resurgence in the wake of the Marathon bombing. Several teams — including the New York Yankees, the Atlanta Braves, and the Miami Marlins — have played the song at their ballparks as a show of solidarity with the city of Boston.
Diamond himself led Red Sox fans in singing “Sweet Caroline” at the April 20 game against the Kansas City Royals.
The song, which doesn’t mention either the city of Boston or the Red Sox, was inspired by a photo of President John F. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline , who was 11 when Diamond wrote the song. He sang the song for her at her 50th birthday celebration in 2007.
Diamond has said he is also working on a new song inspired by the bombing.
“I’m writing now and obviously affected by this situation in Boston, so I’m writing about it just to express myself,” the native New Yorker told Rolling Stone . The song is currently untitled and will also cover the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Aurora, Colorado.
The One Fund Boston, which was formed to help those most affected by the bombings, has raised nearly $8 million in public donations and over $16 million in corporate donations. At the time of this writing, the fund had raised $23,784,987.
Donating these royalties to #OneFund !RT “@ nielsen_ent : ‘Sweet Caroline’ sales up by 597 percent, selling 19K after Boston bombings.
— Neil Diamond (@NeilDiamond) April 24, 2013
