It is one of those classic, timeless songs that you would have heard being murdered by dodgy singers at karaoke bars or the track which fills dance floors on a night out for generations.
And now the unstoppable force of Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline has taken on a whole new life again, being belted out by England fans on their road to the Euro 2020 final against Italy at Wembley on Sunday evening.
Fans had been singing it on a number of occasions, but their semi-final victory against Denmark which saw the team sing the 1969 classic with jubilant fans really highlighted how much of an anthem it has become for the home nation's campaign, alongside Three Lions. It has had no previous association with England, and in fact, Northern Ireland football fans have long claimed the tine as their own. So how did it end up becoming the terrace soundtrack to England's success?
It turns out the DJ at Wembley Stadium, where England have played their entire tournament apart from one occasion where they travelled to Rome to take on Ukraine in the quarter finals, may have something to do with it.
DJ Tony Perry told BBC Radio Ulster: "When England beat Germany we played Sweet Caroline in the pre-match build up and both sets of fans reacted to it like crazy.
"England’s song should forever be ‘Three Lions’ but we don’t want to take anything away from the wonderful people of Northern Ireland, but at that moment I just felt ‘do you know what I’m just going to hit play on Sweet Caroline’ because I think it will do a better job than ‘Vindaloo’ at that particular time.
"The sentiment was coming out of a pandemic, Gareth Southgate laying to rest the ghosts of Euro 96. I’m sorry guys if it’s taken a bit of a runaway now, I do apologise.”
Neil Diamond wrote the classic hit as a love song for his then wife Marcia, but her name did not fit. He has stated in the past that the inspiration for the song was John F Kennedy's daughter Caroline, who was aged just 11 at the time the song was released after he saw her photograph in a magazine. He sang the song to her at her 50th birthday celebration in 2007.
