November 21st 2007 – Singer and songwriter Neil Diamond finally revealed that his 1969 #1 hit ‘Sweet Caroline’ was actually inspired and about president John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s last surviving child, Caroline Kennedy. Diamond (69) revealed this to Kennedy at her 50th birthday celebration via satellite link. You now have all the data necessary to figure out my problem with this declaration that has been branded cute, ‘sweet’ and a great honour. SHE WAS 12 AT THE TIME!Furthermore, Diamond went on to explain that the inspiration from the song came from a picture of young Kennedy (9 years old) riding a pony in a tabloid newspaper. If we stick to the title (Sweet Caroline), it evokes a celebration of a Kennedy princess full of innocence and unblemished by the geopolitical context she was born into. Then again, if we analyze the lyrics, and I mean graze over them since it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get my point, things take a turn for the worst. ‘But now I look at the night-and it don't seem so lonely-We fill it up with only two-Hands, touchin' hands…Warm, touchin' warm-Reachin' out-Touchin' me-Touchin' you-Sweet Caroline-Ta ta ta…’, my mind is screaming IT’S WRONG yet my foot is still tapping. Damn that catchy tune. It might be a joke yet the lack of media interest in this story and the fact that we can’t find this 3-day old story on any major news site anymore (CNN, MSNBC, BBC), makes me want to search Neil Diamond’s computer…just to be on the safe side.
Some people may say: ‘it was different back then’ yet it NEVER EVER has been. I don’t care if it was 2330 years ago that Aristotle befriended (please imagine my air quotes for that word) a young Alexander the Great, the acts and attractions remain very, very wrong. I have to say I am not surprised at the lack of American reaction because a patriot can do no wrong. Some of the founding fathers of North America have been serious cradle robbers.
Founding father of Quebec City and some more of the first settlements in Canada 400 years ago, Samuel de Champlain, married one Hélène Boullé. He was in his thirties and she was 12. The only thing of importance that was ‘different’ back then was that the average age of puberty was 16-17. SO WRONG! Later, during the American Civil War, Captain Russell Conwall was ‘attended to’ by a 16 year-old Johnny Ring, his official job was ‘safeguarding the Captain’s saber’. Giggle but WRONG!
I do hope Neil was kidding and didn’t weigh his words yet we can’t be too careful in a society where the prisons are filled with sexual predators.
(Pictured: Samuel de champlain - A shifty Neil Diamond)
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2 comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyeFH8oieZM&feature=related
Check it out, Elvis sang it too :P I think this version is better.
As for the whole "wrongness" about the inspiration of the song being sublime innocence of JFK's daughter, I don't see your connection.
Champlain married the young girl and assuming they consummated the marriage early, I can see why you having a problem with that. I do not know if historically that age for marriage was normal or not. I know many of my ancestors married very young.
As for the song, it is... well, a song. Inspiration in writing verse is just a starting image, theme, concept. To say that the rest of the song is about HER being that age and HIM, being his age, is unlikely.
In other words, the writer of the song is projecting a persona of a certain age, unknown, and that of a sweet innocent girl based on JFK's daughter whose age is also unknown. The intimacy in the song suggests two young people, probably teens or young adults.
In history, the life of the author is important, but in literature it is not. The work, over ANYTHING the author says or does, takes precedence. Some authors want their work burnt after their deaths or claim that there is no symbolism in their stories, or that it is in NO way connected to WWI, but clearly they are lying. Why lie? Who cares, the song's still good.
I think you are the one that is assigning metaphor to a song that may or may not BE about something. I think you give great artistic style to a song that has 2 couplets and 62 refrains. Pop music is NOT litterature. If Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond are artists with amazing artistic integrity, we would have to assign qualities to Britney Spears and Michael Jackson. I'd rather die.
We don't know if the 'intimacy' is between two young lovers on a pristine autstralian beach in the 1970s. We can only KNOW what the lyrics tell us. I am not saying the song is about the age difference, evidently even Neil didn't see the problem, I am just saying that the lyrics are no longer socially acceptable when we take the age thing into account. You have to admit the possibility that he did't 'project a persona' at all.
As for the wrongness, I don't think you got my point. I don't care if it was socially acceptable for de Champlain or your ancestors to marry a child at the time. I hold the belief that sexual activities between a man in his twenties+ and a pre-pubescent boy or girl is wrong. So sue me and join NAMBLA :).
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