Neil Diamond to donate royalties from Sweet Caroline to Boston

Neil Diamond surprised everyone during the Boston Red Sox’s first home game since the Boston attacks last week by singing his 1969 hit song, ‘Sweet Caroline’.  Because of this, recent sales of his hit song have exploded by nearly 600% since the April 15th bombing in Boston.  The song is traditionally played during the 8th inning of Boston Red Sox  home games, but this time around Neil Diamond showed up in person to sing to show his support of Boston over the bombings.  This helped the song climb to number 33 on Billboard’s pop digital song list and it’s not slowing down.

In response to this, Neil Diamond has stated that royalties from this song will go to the One Fund Boston charity which supports the victims and families of those affected by the bombing and has already raised more than $23 million in its first week.  The song has been downloaded over 19,000 times this week, and about 10% of that from Boston. Due to his donation announcement, we can only expect it to climb even higher.  Diamond recorded the song in 1969 as an homage to President John F. Kennedy’s daughter, and although it had no special reference to Boston it became an 8th inning staple at Fenway Park back in 2002.

Neil Diamond recently told Rolling Stone Magazine that he’s writing new songs, inspired partly by the bombings, “I’m writing now and obviously affected by this situation in Boston, so I’m writing about it just to express myself,” he told the magazine. “It’s like an infestation, and I’m writing about the general situation, not just about this bombing in Boston, but what we’re going through with all of these tragedies – shootings and so on and so forth.”

Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter with a career that began in the 1960s. Diamond has sold over 125 million records worldwide including 48 million in the United States alone.