Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline is not the most intuitive choice for a hockey arena anthem. It goes over so well for one reason: audience
participation.
NEIL: “Sweet Caroline ...”
18,000 FANS: Bah bah bah
NEIL: “Good times never seem so good.”
18,000 FANS: So good, so good, so good!
You get the idea. It’s call and response, and people love to join in. The “response” part was not
built into Diamond’s original lyric; it seems to have evolved over the years as
fans got increasingly comfortable with the nightly routine of familiar tunes
and started improvising on them.