Songfacts®:

• Taylor Swift wrote "Carolina" for the Where The Crawdads Sing movie, which stars Normal People's Daisy Edgar-Jones. Adapted from Delia Owens' best-selling book of the same name, the plot follows Kya (Edgar-Jones), who grows up in the early 1950s in the North Carolina marshlands. Abandoned at an early age, she learns to survive by herself. Years later, Kya enters into a toxic relationship with quarterback Chase Andrews that has dire consequences.
• Swift wrote "Carolina" for the film, titling it after the US state where the book and movie are set. When the pop star read Where The Crawdads Sing years previously, she "got absolutely lost" in the story. Swift "wanted to create something haunting and ethereal" for the film adaptation.
• Swift sings from Kya's perspective as she references her strong connection to the North Carolina creeks and pines where she grew up. Later, (spoiler alert!) she muses on the murder trial Kya gets engulfed in after the death of Chase.
• Swift penned the song during her Folklore and Evermore era. She wrote "Carolina" alone, in the middle of the night, with the intention of authentically channeling the isolation and resourcefulness of Kya. According to the pop star, "Carolina" tells the story of "a girl who always lived on the outside, looking in. Figuratively and literally. The juxtaposition of her loneliness and independence. Her curiosity and fear all tangled up. Her persisting gentleness and the world's betrayal of it."
• Swift co-produced the ballad alongside her Folklore and Evermore collaborator Aaron Dessner. She recorded "Carolina" in one take, using only instruments authentic to the movie's early 1950s setting.
• Swift wrote the song without being commissioned, and then turned it in without warning. "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,'" director Olivia Newman said in a roundtable discussion, adding, "The first time I listened to it, I just started bawling and I said, 'I don't know what's happening to me right now.' I mean, I love singing along to Taylor Swift songs, but I never cry like this."
• Swift submitted the song before filming started and it ended up shaping the entire movie. "It's hard to know exactly what song will be the perfect fit for it, but obviously, when I heard the song for the first time, I had an initial response to it, which was the same feeling when I finished the book," Newman told Newsweek. "I knew that was the feeling I wanted to leave the movie on so immediately I thought 'this is going to be a perfect fit for the end of the movie.'"