Taylor Swift’s new song ‘Carolina’ for upcoming movie ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ was released on Friday.
Swift took to her Instagram to share details about the track.
“About a year and half ago I wrote a song about an incredible story, the story of a girl who always lived on the outside, looking in,” the singer wrote in the caption. “Figuratively and literally. The juxtaposition of her loneliness and independence. Her longing and her stillness. Her curiosity and fear, all tangled up. Her persisting gentleness... and the world’s betrayal of it. I wrote this one alone in the middle of the night and then @aarondessner and I meticulously worked on a sound that we felt would be authentic to the moment in time when this story takes place. I made a wish that one day you would hear it. ‘Carolina’ is out now.”
The song, which plays over the film’s closing credits, was released three weeks before ‘Where the Crawdads Sing,’ which is scheduled to hit theatres on July 15.
Swift has released remakes and previously unreleased bonus tracks from her run of re-recorded catalogue albums in the interim, but this is the first brand-new song she has released since her ‘Evermore’ album in late 2020.
In a roundtable discussion about the movie that was live-streamed on June 13, the production team provided more details about the song.
Points of interest were shared by Reese Witherspoon, who produced the film, and director Olivia Newman. The song was recorded in one take, using only instruments that were available in the early 1950s, when the first part of ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is set.
Witherspoon said: “She read this book and loved it so much, and then she heard we were making a movie [during the period] she was making her ‘Folklore’ album and then she wrote a song with that whole ‘Folklore’ team, which was so haunting and magical and beautiful.”
“She had gone and written this song out of just pure inspiration and sort of said, ‘I don’t know if you’ll like it, but here it is,’” Newman added.
The filmmakers revealed that Swift wrote the song on the fly and then submitted it at random, as reported by Variety.
Swift has previously co-written or written original songs for major motion pictures, such as ‘I Don’t Wanna Live Forever’ for ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ in 2016, ‘Sweeter Than Fiction’ for ‘One Chance’ in 2013, ‘Safe and Sound’ and ‘Eyes Open’ for ‘The Hunger Games’ in 2012, ‘Today Was a Fairytale’ for ‘Valentine’s Day’ in 2010, and ‘Crazier’ and ‘You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home’ for ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’ in 2009.
