From Oktoberfest to the NFL: How Munich crowd made 'Country Roads' a stadium ritual

MUNICH (AP) — Tom Brady called it “pretty epic.” In Munich four years ago, the Buccaneers beat the Seahawks.

But he wasn’t referring to the game.

The now-retired quarterback was talking about how the German fans memorably belted out the lyrics to “Take Me Home, Country Roads” late in the fourth quarter and then stuck around after the final whistle to sing “Sweet Caroline.”

The full-stadium karaoke has become a tradition at each NFL game in Germany and no doubt will be a highlight Sunday when the Detroit Lions face the New England Patriots at Allianz Arena in Munich.

“Once they’ve had a couple of beers, they like to hug each other and start singing songs — it’s like an integral part of German culture,” said Jan Weinreich, a former quarterback who helps cover the NFL for German broadcaster RTL.

Both songs are well-known in Germany and have been popular for years at festivals like Oktoberfest .

“Not only after beers,” fan Zeljko Vrhar explained Saturday after a visit to the NFL’s merchandise store in Old Town.

“Every birthday party, private parties, everywhere the song is in the playlist,” he said of John Denver’s 1971 hit. “Everybody knows it — children, older people, my grandpa, my grandma, my parents.”

Similarly, he said, Germans learn Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” released in 1969, from an early age.

Vrhar, who attended the Munich game in 2022 , called it “a special moment... I saw the players on the field. They were looking around like, ‘what’s happening here?’”

As fans stayed post-game and sang “Sweet Caroline,” Tampa Bay players Sean Murphy-Bunting and Carlton Davis III — who now plays for New England but is injured — bounced to the beat and high-fived fans.

The tradition has continued at two games in Frankfurt in 2023, another Munich game in 2024, and last year in Berlin — with visiting American fans and others of course joining in.

Alexander Steinforth, general manager of NFL Germany, said the singing is “deeply rooted in the German culture of Oktoberfest.”

“'Country Roads' but also ‘Sweet Caroline’ are two of the songs that almost everyone knows here in Germany," he said. "They’re often played in stadia, but I think it never reached such a level as it did for the first NFL game here in ’22. It has evolved from there. Now, it seems to be played across all our international games.”

It makes sense why the songs are so popular at games — across a variety of sports — with feel-good lyrics and uplifting choruses.

The Boston Red Sox have been playing “Sweet Caroline” in the middle of the eighth inning of home games at Fenway Park for more than 20 years.

“Country Roads” — which the Library of Congress says has been recorded in 19 languages — became the anthem of the U.S. men's soccer team during last summer's World Cup.

Born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., Denver died in a plane crash in 1997. The song references West Virginia, but Denver's estate told the AP this summer that it transcends geography.

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