"Holly Holy" is a song written and recorded by Neil Diamond

Neil Diamond

Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter with a career spanning over five decades from the 1960s until the present....

. Released as a single in October 1969, it was quite successful as the follow-on to "Sweet Caroline

Sweet Caroline

"Sweet Caroline" is a pop song written and performed by Neil Diamond and officially released on September 16, 1969, as a single. It was later released on December 9, 1972 as a part of Diamond's Hot August Night album. There are three distinct mixes of this song...

", reaching number 6 on the U.S. pop singles chart

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 by December. It became a gold record and then eventually platinum.

A work with a spiritual focus, "Holly Holy" was influenced by gospel music

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

 and was Diamond's favorite of the songs he had written to that point. It begins quietly with acoustic guitar

Acoustic guitar

An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

 against a bass line, with the sparse lyric stretched with elongated vowels. Gradually the arrangement builds up with a tempo shift in the bridge and a backing choir against strings lasting throughout.

"Holly Holy" was later included on Diamond's November 1969 album Touching You, Touching Me

Touching You, Touching Me

Touching You, Touching Me is the name of Neil Diamond's fifth album. It was the first one since 1966 to feature renditions of other people's material as well as his own. It included one major hit that had already charted, "Holly Holy" , and one minor one, "Until It's Time for You to Go" . The album...

. It has been included in live versions on Diamond's Hot August Night

Hot August Night

Hot August Night is a 1972 live double album by Neil Diamond. The album is a recording of a Diamond concert on Thursday August 24, 1972, one of ten sold out concerts that Diamond performed that month at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles...

(from 1972) and Greatest Hits: 1966–1992 (from 1992), as well as in various compilations.

A treatment of "Holly Holy" by Jr. Walker & the All Stars

Jr. Walker & the All Stars

Junior Walker & the All Stars were signed to the Motown label in the 1960s, and became one of the label's signature acts.-Biography:...

 was a modest R&B hit in 1971.

Nancy Sinatra

Nancy Sinatra

Nancy Sandra Sinatra is an American singer and actress. She is the daughter of singer/actor Frank Sinatra, and remains best known for her 1966 signature hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"....

covered the song for her second TV special, "Movin' with Nancy on Stage" in 1971.

"Holly Holy" was covered in 1998 by UB40.

"Holly Holy" was a key soundtrack song in "Holy Smoke!"