Exiling Sweet Caroline

No matter what the sport, walk into any stadium or arena and the public address system takes you hostage. Announcements, hype tracks, synthetic energy are all layered into a nonstop sonic barrage that refuses to leave a single second of air unfilled.

Their playlist predates the modern stadium era that has been passed down through oral tradition by early tailgating societies.

Stadium crowds are certainly capable of generating drama on their own, but silence is treated as an existential threat

Every timeout, injury, or a player tying his shoe triggers yet another blast of the same dozen songs making for less game atmosphere and more of an auditory ransom note.

Stadium crowds are certainly capable of generating drama on their own, but silence is treated as an existential threat, especially during baseball games. If the speakers go quiet for even a few seconds, people might drift off to check their phones or start wondering why a bottle of water costs roughly the same as your Netflix subscription.

Instead, the “music” hammers away loud, relentless and aggressively generic until the experience resembles a five in the morning shouting match with a leaf blower.

At Penn State, the most synchronized source of campus pride is the Blue Band’s traditional melody of fight songs, fanfares, halftime epics and postgame performances. Yet the Beaver Stadium sound crew still feels compelled to carpet bomb every third down with Sheck Wes’s “Let’s make some noise,” as if the boisterous 100,000 on hand need a reminder to get loud.

The rest of the playlist fans know by heart: the pumpup riff, the obligatory classicrock stomp, and the EDM drop that sounds like a dishwasher malfunctioning. Some are so banal they rival the Nittany Lions very predictable offensive playbook from last season.

There is one particular stadium singalong that has morphed across the nation as the secular anthem of the American sporting experience that is so overused it has been exported. 

“Sweet Caroline” a 1969 hit from Neil Diamond was born from serendipity that started as a quirky and spontaneous tribute during a Red Sox game at Fenway Park in 1997. Since then, the rest of baseball, the NFL, college football, UK soccer, and even Australian rugby jumped on the bandwagon.

The time has arrived to turn down the speakers and allow the crowd find its own voice through the natural rhythm of the game

When every venue uses the same soundtrack, it stops feeling like tradition and becomes a predictable cliché of musical wallpaper.

It is a musical Esperanto: loved by some and tolerated by the rest. And yet, ask most fans why it is sung, they have no clue.

The song’s melodic simplicity, once a strength, now feels like a weakness. The chorus: “So good, so good, so good” is shouted with such frequency that it has become a parody of itself. The song is a karaoke chant devoid of context and sung by folks in nacho-stained jerseys. It has become the musical equivalent of stale popcorn.

The lyrics “touching me, touching you” has become formulaic, forced, and exhausting and has aged as well as unrefrigerated coleslaw. Given Penn State’s recent history, it’s a mystery why this particular track hasn’t been quietly escorted off the premises.

Critics are legion.

Matt Reigle of OutKick calls it “a lump of sonic excrement,” lamenting its “boring, lazy melody.” Bob Latham of SportsTravel coined the phrase “Sweet Caroline, No,” arguing that the song’s ubiquity has stifled musical innovation in sports.

While others call it “overplayed, saccharine, and vaguely creepy.”

In a world where sports are about authenticity, local pride, and unique fan experiences, Sweet Caroline is a relic and long overdue for retirement.

The time has arrived to turn down the speakers and allow the crowd find its own voice through the natural rhythm of the game.

The fitting chant at Penn State needs to be: “We are … over it.”