Songfacts®:

• Rachael Yamagata shuts down her metaphorical carnival on this song, pulling up stakes and leaving the elephants free to roam.
  
  "It's like, I'm done with what weighs me down, whether it's relationships, an industry, or preconceived expectations, anything that draws away from what my authentic me wants to express," she explained in a Songfacts interview. "And it's being comfortable in your own skin and not wanting approval, like you're no longer playing a role for anybody else."
  
  "For me, it's for women," she added. "It feels like the kind of song that's coming in to your own power, and the freedom and the enjoyment and the epic crest of that."
• Yamagata started performing "Carnival" in 2024, a year before releasing it on her album Starlit Alchemy. Around that time, she developed TMJ disorder, which made it hard for her to sing. At one point in her medical journey, a doctor proffered that the song could be triggering her symptoms, and maybe she should stop performing it. Her reply: "I can't take that off the setlist."
• "Carnival" is one of Rachael Yamagata's more orchestral songs, with a string section arranged by Oli Kraus. She says it's a song people either love or hate - there's not much middle ground.