Neil Diamond donates 'Sweet Caroline' sales to bombing victims

Neil Diamond sang 'Sweet Caroline' at the first home baseball game at Fenway since the Marathon attacks.

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NEW YORK (AP) -- Neil Diamond is donating some of this week's sales from "Sweet Caroline" after the tune became a source of comfort following the explosions at the Boston Marathon.

Sales from Diamond's song are up by 597 percent, Nielsen SoundScan said Wednesday. Diamond's representative said the singer will donate the recent sales to marathon bombing victims.

"Sweet Caroline" sold 19,000 tracks this week. It sold 2,800 tracks the previous week and 1.75 million tracks to date.

The crowd-pleasing song is a staple of Boston Red Sox games. It makes no specific mention of Boston or the Red Sox, but the team started playing it regularly at Fenway Park more than a decade ago and fans took to it.

The New York Yankees, Toronto Raptors and other professional sports teams also have played the song at games in the days after the deadly blasts April 15.

Diamond released "Sweet Caroline" in 1969. The song was inspired by Caroline Kennedy's name.

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