Since yesterday, the news is flooded with reports of playing the song “Sweet Caroline” at sporting events, as solidarity with Fenway Park in Boston. I gathered from these reports that it has been a sort of anthem for Bostonians, and I wondered how it got that status. My guess was that it results from Neil Diamond’s revelation (in 2007) that the song was a tribute to Caroline Kennedy, and her family’s connection to Boston. But according to the Wikipedia article, the song has been played at Fenway for 10 years longer than that - since 1997.
So what’s the connection?
Looking at the lyrics, I see the first stanza mentions spring and summer, which is baseball time. Is the connection that tenuous?
Add to that, shortly after the song was regularly played in the 8th inning (beginning in 2002), the Red Sox broke the “Curse of the Bambino” and won the World Series in 2004 – their first since 1918. Another WS victory in 2007, and that song is cemented in Red Sox tradition for a long time.
There’s a much, much better song associated with the city and winning pro sports tradition (it was played full blast in the arena as Boston was winning its most recent Stanley Cup), and I may play it today in my own tribute.
Sweet Caroline has also been a long time favorite Irish pub classic that every Irish pub singing group includes in their playlist because it has standard and easy sing-along and gesture-along lyrics. It’s right up there with The Last Unicorn.
So, it should be no surprise that it became a crowd favorite in an Irish Boston ballpark.
I saw on TV that they played “Sweet Caroline” at the Yankees game yesterday and the crowd sang along enthusiastically. I thought that was a nice gesture of solidarity with the city of Boston in spite of the long-time rivalry between the Yankees and the Sox.
Dirty Water is the victory song and is only played after Boston victories. Sweet Caroline is played during each game and is much more inclusive. Either would have been nice; but I’m glad they chose SC.
Piano Man is a downer (and not in the way that Irish American songs with all those departed dear ones lost in the war are downers) and it doesn’t have crowd participation hand gestures. Also, performers don’t mind when crowds participate in small doses (“No! Nay! Never!”), but hate it when the crowd sings along through the whole song as they’re wont to do with Piano Man.
But then again, I never understood the Irish Pub playlist:
Supposedly Irish* war songs (undaunted spirit though always losing)
Neil Diamond set
Supposedly Irish* heartbreak songs (oh mother, she left me fahr to die!)
Pop ethnic songs of the world to show that everyone’s Irish somehow (That’s Amore, Beer Barrel Polka, etc…)
US Patriotic medley
*Many of the supposedly Irish pub songs are actually Irish American; the folks back home never heard of them or performed them till the Yanks expected to hear them when vacationing.
To prove your point I haven’t a clue what The Last Unicorn is. Sweet Caroline is a standard song in karaoke bars, often the finale, and pub rock sets here in Ireland though.