Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond) Guitar Lesson with TAB

Sweet Caroline Guitar Lesson + TAB
In this guitar lesson, there are 5 pieces of TAB provided for you to learn and play as the only guitarist in the band!


Sweet Caroline | TAB


Using TAB, let’s first take a look at the intro of Sweet Caroline as if played without and then with a capo.

Sweet Caroline TAB, intro.

F#11 and D/E using a capo on fret 2 is the same thing. I could have called the first chord an E/F# but wanted to point out that these are the same thing.

It’s definitely better to play in A so let’s focus on this, here’s the intro melody, in case you don’t want to play the chord.

Sweet Caroline TAB, intro melody.

Next up, the verse looks like this:

Sweet Caroline TAB, verse.

I really like the simplicity of going from an E-shaped A to an A-shaped A, and then the same idea for the D chord, although now it’s an A-shaped D to a C-shaped D.

Finally, the E stays low. On the original recording, it’s just one string but I felt that wasn’t enough when playing live.

Here’s the bridge, the 6 chord is lovely after so many triads.

Sweet Caroline TAB, bridge.

Finally, the chorus looks like this:

Sweet Caroline TAB, chorus.

Notice how the last two bars say E, even though it’s an E/G#. D even though it’s a D/F#. It’s an A/E, even though it’s an A/C#, and E/B, even though it’s an E!

The reason for this is that the bass player needs to play EDC#B. As long as he does that, we can just play nice, compact, closely connected chords.

Use the chords and lyrics lesson as well as this TAB to make sense of it all.



Sweet Caroline TAB | Related Pages


Sweet Caroline | Chords + Lyrics

Sweet Caroline chords lesson.

You can learn how to play Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.

| A | A | D | D |
Where it began, I can’t begin to knowing…


Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics

When you can play Sweet Caroline's chords, try these five tunes from the songbook.


Neil Diamond tunes

Neil Diamond wrote Sweet Caroline.

Neil Diamond dropped out of college to go work for Tin Pan Aley as a songwriter as a teenager.

His best tunes include Solitary Man, Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon, I’m A Believer, Red Red Wine, Sweet Caroline, and You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.


Neil Diamond on the web

Listen to Neil Diamond on Spotify.


About me | Dan Lundholm

Dan Lundholm wrote this guitar lesson and TAB for Sweet Caroline.

This guitar lesson by Dan Lundholm features TAB and covers Sweet Caroline. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.

Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.


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