Neil Diamond Revises His Song, "Sweet Caroline" for Coronavirus Awareness

He uploaded a video on his social media account last Sunday morning from his home.

"Hi everybody. This is Neil Diamond and I know we're going through a rough time right now, but I love ya, and I think if we all sing together, well, we'll feel just a little bit better. Give it a try, okay?" Diamond requests in his video on Twitter.

The Revised Sweet Caroline Awareness Song

Diamond used the song as his public service announcement or an awareness campaign as the whole world, including him and his fans, are on an enforced quarantine to contain the virus. Diamond is 79 years old, according to Rolling Stone. Victims of the illness who had died are mostly of the same age as his.

Much like some popular memes about washing hands, social distancing, and other jokes and procedures on how to cope with the pandemic, Diamond updates the lyrics of Sweet Caroline with words that describe the protocol being done for containing the outbreak.

The official lyric of the song has the line "Hands, touching hands. Reaching out, touching me, touching you." In his revised words, he says, "Hands, washing hands. Reaching out, don't touch me, I won't touch you." The lyrics of the song advocates proper hygiene and social distancing.

Diamond captions his tweet, "Stay safe out there!" after he uploaded the video.

The video made almost two million views on Twitter.

Not the First One

Diamond is not the first one to do a live performance on social media. He is also not the first one to make a video about the recent pandemic. Singer Gloria Gaynor urges everyone to wash hands while singing her hit I Will Survive.

Singers David Foster, John Legend, and Chris Martin also perform from their homes like a work from home basis via Instagram. Rock and Country musicians Micah Wilson and Garth Brooks also made their live performances via Facebook Live with Wilson also cancelling his concert in Austin, TX to avoid mass gathering to avoid the spread of the virus.

Even some Hollywood personalities also showed their performances in their social media accounts. Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot and other stars collaborate to sing sing John Lennon's Imagine.

Jennifer Lopez, Ciara, and athlete Serena Williams vlogs on TikTok. Ciara showed her dance moves while Jennifer Lopez did it with her family.

COVID-19 Update

CDC and WHO report as of this writing that there are now 15,219 cases of COVID-19 in the United States with 201 deaths. There are 294,110 cases and 12,944 deaths worldwide.