Songfacts®:

• This bluesy stomper finds Harry Styles smitten and singing about a "good girl" who "feels so good!" The song's title comes from its opening line, where he sings about the girl having roots in the Carolinas (the US states of North and South Carolina).
• While talking about "Carolina," in the documentary Harry Styles: Behind the Album, the interviewer asked the One Direction star if he's seen the girl since he wrote it. He answered with a sly smile, "I have." When asked if she knows it's about her, Styles replied, "She does not. But her name's in it, so I'm a bit f--ked with that one."
• She never saw herself as a West Coaster (woo, oh yeah)
  Moved all the way 'cause her grandma told her: (woo, oh yeah)
  "Townes, better swim before you drown" (woo, oh yeah)
  
  After Styles stated the subject of the song's name is included in the lyrics, the media reported it was most likely a fan named Townes, originally from South Carolina who the star was photographed with once in 2016.
• This was the last song written for the album within the last two weeks of the recording process, when Harry and his team were in a funk about the record. Eventually, after a break from the studio, they came back and created "Carolina," which Styles said in the documentary "was the exact little piece that had been missing. It was the little bit of fun that we wanted and that we didn't have."