Neil Diamond Writes Song for Bombing Victims

Image by Getty Images

By Curt Schleier June 26, 2013

Though it doesn’t mention Boston or baseball, Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” is a staple at Red Sox games. In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, the singer-songwriter went to Fenway Park and sang it live. He subsequently donated royalties from the song to One Fund Boston, the charity started to help victims of the terrorist attack.

Image by Getty Images

But he wasn’t through. Inspired by the events and the city’s resilience, the Brooklyn native went home and wrote “Freedom Song (They’ll Never Take Us Down),” a rousing patriotic piece that will become available July 2 on Amazon and iTunes. All proceeds will go to the One Find and Wounded Warriors Project.

Diamond will sing it live for the first time at a Washington Nationals baseball game on Independence Day and later that evening on “A Capitol Fourth,” the PBS broadcast of the holiday celebration from Washington.

“I, like so many other Americans, felt helpless during the recent attacks in Boston and wanted so much to reach out and not only help those people affected in a direct way but to lift their spirits as well and let them know they were not alone,” Diamond said.

“I was inspired to devote myself to the creation of a new song which expressed my love for this country and its two greatest assets: the spirit of its people and the freedoms it has afforded us all by law.”

Curt Schleier is a freelance writer and author who covers business and the arts for a variety of publications. Follow him on Twitter at @tvsoundoff.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO