Carolina in My Mind
Encyclopedia
"Carolina in My Mind" is a song written and performed by singer-songwriter
James Taylor
, which first appeared on his 1968 debut album, James Taylor
. Taylor wrote it while overseas recording for The Beatles
' label Apple Records
, and the song's themes reflect his homesickness
at the time. Released as a single, the song earned critical praise but not commercial success. It was re-recorded for Taylor's 1976 Greatest Hits
album in the version that is most familiar to listeners. It has been a staple of Taylor's concert performances over the decades of his career.
The song was a modest hit on the country charts in 1969 for North Carolinian singer George Hamilton IV
. Strongly tied to a sense of geographic place, "Carolina in My Mind" has been called an unofficial state anthem for North Carolina
. It is also an unofficial song of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
, being played at athletic events and pep rallies and sung by the graduating class at every university commencement. The association of the song with the state is also made in written works of both fiction and non-fiction. It has become one of Taylor's most critically praised songs and one that has great popularity and significance for his audience.
. Taylor wrote it while overseas recording for The Beatles
' label Apple Records
. He started writing the song at producer Peter Asher
's London
flat on Marylebone High Street
, resumed work on it while on holiday on the Mediterranean island of Formentera
, and then completed it while stranded on the nearby island of Ibiza
with a Swedish girl Karin he had just met. The song reflects Taylor's homesickness
at the time, as he was missing his family, his dog, and his state.
The original recording of the song was done at London's Trident Studios
during the July to October 1968 period, and was produced by Asher. The song's lyric "holy host of others standing around me" makes reference to The Beatles, who were recording The White Album
in the same studio where Taylor was recording his album. Indeed, the recording of "Carolina in My Mind" featured a credited appearance by Paul McCartney
on bass guitar and an uncredited one by George Harrison
on backing vocals. The other players were Freddie Redd
on organ, Joel "Bishop" O'Brien on drums, and Mick Wayne providing a second guitar alongside Taylor's. Taylor and Asher also did backing vocals and Asher added a tambourine. Richard Hewson
arranged and conducted a string part; an even more ambitious 30-piece orchestra part was recorded but not used. The song itself earned critical praise, with Jon Landau
's April 1969 review for Rolling Stone
calling it "beautiful" and one of the "two most deeply affecting cuts" on the album and praising McCartney's bass playing as "extraordinary". Taylor biographer Timothy White calls the song "the album's quiet masterpiece."
The song was first released on Taylor's eponymous debut album
in December 1968 (February 1969 in the United States), and was later released as a single in the UK in February 1969 and in the US in March 1969. However, owing to the same problems which plagued the release of the album (namely, Taylor's inability to promote it due to his hospitalization for drug addiction), the single's original release only reached number 118 on US pop charts
and failed to chart in the UK. Indeed, Taylor had fallen back into addiction during the London recording sessions, and his line about being surrounded by Beatles had been immediately followed by Still I'm on the dark side of the moon. Following the success of Taylor's second album, Sweet Baby James
, and its hit single "Fire and Rain
", "Carolina in My Mind" was reissued by Apple
as a single in October 1970 and rose to number 67 on the US charts. (A previously unreleased acoustic demo of "Carolina in My Mind" was issued as a bonus track on the 2010 Apple Records remastering of James Taylor.)
Different versions of both this song and "Something in the Way She Moves" were remade by Taylor for use on his 1976 Greatest Hits
album because of the difficulty of obtaining licensing rights from Apple during the 1970s and because of uncertainty about where the Apple masters were. The new recordings were done in October 1976 at The Sound Factory
in Los Angeles
, and production was again done by Peter Asher.
This rendition of "Carolina in My Mind" had a slower tempo than the original, and accompanying Taylor on acoustic guitar were experienced LA session musicians Dan Dugmore on pedal steel (highlighted in the descending note sequences at the song's conclusion), Lee Sklar on bass, Russ Kunkel
on drums, Clarence McDonald
on piano, Andrew Gold
on harmonium, and Byron Berline
on fiddle. Backing vocals were handled by Gold and Taylor. Greatest Hits became a diamond record, selling over 11 millions copies in the U.S. by 2001, and this is the version of "Carolina in My Mind" that became best known. The remake earned even more critical praise than the original. Bill Janovitz
of Allmusic said of the 1976 recording that it "accent[ed] the languid, plaintive, and wistful country melancholy of the song," while in the 1979 Rolling Stone Record Guide, critic Stephen Holden
said that the "stunning" remake showed how much Taylor's singing had strengthened in the intervening years. Biographer White believed that the song benefited from the removal of the original's orchestration.
The 1976 re-recording was also included on Taylor's 2003 compilation The Best of James Taylor
.
of virtually every Taylor tour.
A 1992 performance of it was included near the end of Taylor's first live album, 1993's Live
. The audience reaction demonstrates that the song has great popularity despite never being a hit single: there is immediate cheering as the first notes are picked out on Taylor's acoustic guitar, and further cheering as soon as he starts to sing. By this era Taylor's always-excellent touring band was using four backing singers. Arnold McCuller
, David Lasley
, Kate Markowitz
, and Valerie Carter
featured strongly in the arrangement, continuing the emphasis on the song's harmonies that had begun with the 1976 remake. Their part was especially prominent in the concluding refrains as the final words, "in my mind", were prolonged for emphasis at the end of the song: i-i-i-i-in my mind.
The song has been included in a number of Taylor's concert video releases, including 1979–1982's James Taylor: In Concert at the Blossom Music Festival, 1988's James Taylor: In Concert at Boston
's Colonial Theatre, and 2002's Pull Over. It was performed in collaboration with the Dixie Chicks
in 2002 for the CMT Crossroads program. In 2004, Taylor and the Chicks again performed the song together during the Vote for Change
tour, with Taylor dedicating it to former North Carolina Senator and U.S. vice-presidential candidate John Edwards
. On the 2006 A Musicares Person of the Year Tribute Honoring James Taylor tribute show and video release, "Carolina in My Mind" was performed by Alison Krauss
and Jerry Douglas
. The song was then included in Taylor's 2006–2007 One Man Band Tour; accompanied only by Larry Goldings
on various keyboard instruments, Taylor introduced the song with visual material and by relating its composition on Formentera and other locations. He talked about the Karin of the lyrics, whom he had known only briefly and never seen since, and related various humorous notions about how to find her again. One such performance was documented on the 2007 album and video release One Man Band. Another live performance appeared on Taylor's 2010 live CD/DVD combo release with Carole King
, Live at The Troubadour
.
. The Everly Brothers
also released it as a single in 1969, under the variant title "Carolina on My Mind", but it failed to chart; this was later collected on their 1994 box set Heartaches and Harmonies
. Evie Sands
also touched upon it in her 1969 album Any Way That You Want Me.
The song was recorded by Melanie
on her hit April 1970 album Candles in the Rain
; the arrangement and vocal phrasing are different from Taylor's, and Allmusic writes that her version "exist[s] on an entirely separate plane from the original". It was also recorded in more conventional folk rock
form by John Denver
on his May 1970 album Take Me to Tomorrow
. Philadelphia-based pop group Crystal Mansion released a version in October 1970 that reached number 73 on the US pop singles chart. Dawn
included a version of it on their 1970 debut album Candida
. Around the same time, Glen Campbell
was performing the song as a speeded-up country duet with Linda Ronstadt
on his popular television series The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour
; this was later collected on his 2007 video release Good Times Again.
The song subsequently became so identified with Taylor that other artists recorded it less frequently, but still by the late 2000s there were some 60 albums (including compilation reappearances and albums from Taylor himself) that featured it.
. Taylor had grown up in Carrboro
, outside Chapel Hill
, where his father taught at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine
. Taylor later reflected: "Chapel Hill, the piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people." More broadly, the song has been associated with The South
. Author James L. Peacock sees it akin to Stephen Foster
's "My Old Kentucky Home
" and other songs and works of literature in establishing "the South's sense of place", even if that sense is sometimes an exercise in projected nostalgia. Author Ken Emerson also sees a connection to that quintessential American songwriter, with the Taylor song resembling Foster's "Sitting By My Own Cabin Door" in its sense of longing for home amid personal and contextual dislocation. Recognizing the association with the state, the Chapel Hill Museum opened an ongoing exhibit "Carolina in My Mind: The James Taylor Story" in 2003 that includes memorabilia from Taylor's years in the area and a video documentary.
"Carolina in My Mind" is an unofficial song of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
. It is played at athletic events and pep rallies, and is sung by the graduating class at every university graduation. In October 2006, Taylor returned to the campus to receive the school's Carolina Performing Arts Lifetime Achievement Award. University chancellor James Moeser
said to Taylor, "We love you. We love what you do and how you represent this university." Taylor said, "It's strange but somehow compelling to come home and sing it. It draws a line through my own personal history and connects me again to a place that I go to in my dreams, a landscape that will forever be a part of me." The song is also frequently covered by popular UNC campus a cappella
groups, including the Clef Hangers
. The Clef Hangers'
Fall Concert 2007 performances of the song featured future American Idol season 8
finalist Anoop Desai
handling the lead vocal on the closing part of the song. The Clef Hangers
, joined by university chancellor Holden Thorp
, again performed it in March 2009 at the first anniversary memorial service for murdered student president Eve Carson.
The 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army
, stationed at Fort Bragg
in North Carolina, sponsors a group of singing soldiers known as the 82nd Airborne Division All-American Chorus. They recorded a version of the song on their 2009 album A Soldier's Heart.
Some of the song's lyrics are used as an epigraph
in the 2001 Celebrate the States series volume on North Carolina and in the 1983 reference book America the Quotable. News providers have used "Carolina in My Mind" as a title for stories about the state's politics, economy, and outdoor activities. The song's geographical association also appears in fiction, including in Carly Alexander's 2004 novel The Eggnog Chronicles and North Carolinian Sharyn McCrumb
's 2006 novel St. Dale.
Although it was North Carolina that inspired the song, it is popular in South Carolina
too, tying for first place on a South Carolina Information Highway's construction of a soundtrack regarding the state. It has been used as the theme for the television coverage of the annual Family Circle Cup
tennis event in South Carolina.
"Carolina in My Mind" is also popular among the Carolinian diaspora; prize-winning North Carolinian writer Jill McCorkle
, living in Massachusetts, refers to it as "the chosen anthem of misplaced Carolinians." In Kathy Reichs
' initial Temperance Brennan
novel, Déjà Dead
, the protagonist (like the author) is from North Carolina but working in Montreal
as a forensic anthropologist, and alludes to the song as part of a Carolinian reverie in the midst of a horrid murder case. One person who had moved to California said, "Still to this day I get nostalgic whenever I hear it on the radio. It's a song that makes anyone who grew up in North Carolina homesick. In a way, it's become an anthem song for people who left the state."
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
, which first appeared on his 1968 debut album, James Taylor
James Taylor (album)
James Taylor is singer-songwriter James Taylor's debut album. Released in 1968, it was the first recording by a non-British artist released by Apple Records, and would also be Taylor's only release on that label...
. Taylor wrote it while overseas recording for The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' label Apple Records
Apple Records
Apple Records is a record label founded by The Beatles in 1968, as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Mary Hopkin, James Taylor, Badfinger, and Billy Preston...
, and the song's themes reflect his homesickness
Homesickness
Homesickness is the distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from the specific home environment or attachment objects....
at the time. Released as a single, the song earned critical praise but not commercial success. It was re-recorded for Taylor's 1976 Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits (James Taylor album)
Greatest Hits is singer-songwriter James Taylor's eighth album. Released on November 1, 1976. To this day, it is the best-selling album of his career....
album in the version that is most familiar to listeners. It has been a staple of Taylor's concert performances over the decades of his career.
The song was a modest hit on the country charts in 1969 for North Carolinian singer George Hamilton IV
George Hamilton IV
George Hege Hamilton IV is an American country musician. He began performing in the late 1950s as a teen idol, later switching to country music in the early 1960s.-Biography:Hamilton was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina...
. Strongly tied to a sense of geographic place, "Carolina in My Mind" has been called an unofficial state anthem for North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
. It is also an unofficial song of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
, being played at athletic events and pep rallies and sung by the graduating class at every university commencement. The association of the song with the state is also made in written works of both fiction and non-fiction. It has become one of Taylor's most critically praised songs and one that has great popularity and significance for his audience.
Song and recordings
The song references Taylor's years growing up in North CarolinaNorth Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
. Taylor wrote it while overseas recording for The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' label Apple Records
Apple Records
Apple Records is a record label founded by The Beatles in 1968, as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Mary Hopkin, James Taylor, Badfinger, and Billy Preston...
. He started writing the song at producer Peter Asher
Peter Asher
Peter Asher is an English guitarist, singer, manager and record producer. He first came to prominence in the 1960s as a member of the vocal duo Peter and Gordon before going on to a successful career as a record producer.-Early life:He was born at the Central Middlesex Hospital, a child actor and...
's London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
flat on Marylebone High Street
Marylebone High Street
Marylebone High Street is a shopping street in London, running sub-parallel to Baker Street and terminating at its northern end at the junction with the Marylebone Road...
, resumed work on it while on holiday on the Mediterranean island of Formentera
Formentera
Formentera is the smaller and more southerly island of the Pine Islands group , which belongs to the Balearic Islands autonomous community .-Geography:...
, and then completed it while stranded on the nearby island of Ibiza
Ibiza
Ibiza or Eivissa is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea 79 km off the coast of the city of Valencia in Spain. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. With Formentera, it is one of the two Pine Islands or Pityuses. Its largest cities are Ibiza...
with a Swedish girl Karin he had just met. The song reflects Taylor's homesickness
Homesickness
Homesickness is the distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from the specific home environment or attachment objects....
at the time, as he was missing his family, his dog, and his state.
Dark and silent late last night,
I think I might have heard the highway calling ...
Geese in flight and dogs that bite
And signs that might be omens say I'm going, I'm going
I'm gone to Carolina in my mind.
The original recording of the song was done at London's Trident Studios
Trident Studios
Trident Studios was a British recording facility, originally located at 17 St. Anne's Court in London's Soho district. It was constructed in 1967 by Norman Sheffield a drummer of former 1960's group The Hunters and his Brother Barry....
during the July to October 1968 period, and was produced by Asher. The song's lyric "holy host of others standing around me" makes reference to The Beatles, who were recording The White Album
The Beatles (album)
The Beatles is the ninth official album by the English rock group The Beatles, a double album released in 1968. It is also commonly known as "The White Album" as it has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed on its plain white sleeve.The album was written and recorded during a...
in the same studio where Taylor was recording his album. Indeed, the recording of "Carolina in My Mind" featured a credited appearance by Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
on bass guitar and an uncredited one by George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
on backing vocals. The other players were Freddie Redd
Freddie Redd
Freddie Redd is an American hard bop pianist and composer.His greatest success came in the late 1950s in the play and movie The Connection, in which he both played and acted in New York City, London, and Paris. He also played on the soundtrack album...
on organ, Joel "Bishop" O'Brien on drums, and Mick Wayne providing a second guitar alongside Taylor's. Taylor and Asher also did backing vocals and Asher added a tambourine. Richard Hewson
Richard Anthony Hewson
Richard Anthony Hewson is an English producer, arranger, conductor and multi-instrumentalist, who is best recognized for his studio group The RAH Band.-Career:...
arranged and conducted a string part; an even more ambitious 30-piece orchestra part was recorded but not used. The song itself earned critical praise, with Jon Landau
Jon Landau
Jon Landau is an American music critic, manager and record producer, most known for his association in all three capacities with Bruce Springsteen.He is currently the head of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame....
's April 1969 review for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
calling it "beautiful" and one of the "two most deeply affecting cuts" on the album and praising McCartney's bass playing as "extraordinary". Taylor biographer Timothy White calls the song "the album's quiet masterpiece."
The song was first released on Taylor's eponymous debut album
James Taylor (album)
James Taylor is singer-songwriter James Taylor's debut album. Released in 1968, it was the first recording by a non-British artist released by Apple Records, and would also be Taylor's only release on that label...
in December 1968 (February 1969 in the United States), and was later released as a single in the UK in February 1969 and in the US in March 1969. However, owing to the same problems which plagued the release of the album (namely, Taylor's inability to promote it due to his hospitalization for drug addiction), the single's original release only reached number 118 on US pop charts
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...
and failed to chart in the UK. Indeed, Taylor had fallen back into addiction during the London recording sessions, and his line about being surrounded by Beatles had been immediately followed by Still I'm on the dark side of the moon. Following the success of Taylor's second album, Sweet Baby James
Sweet Baby James
Sweet Baby James is singer-songwriter James Taylor's second album, and his first release on Warner Bros. Records. Released in February 1970, it showcased Taylor's talents and showed the direction he would take in the early 1970s with the expansion of his career. The album featured one of Taylor's...
, and its hit single "Fire and Rain
Fire and Rain
"Fire and Rain" is a folk/rock song written and performed by James Taylor. As a song on his second album, Sweet Baby James, the song engendered widespread attention for him. The album was released in February 1970, with the song being released as a single that month. "Fire and Rain" quickly rose to...
", "Carolina in My Mind" was reissued by Apple
Apple Records
Apple Records is a record label founded by The Beatles in 1968, as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Mary Hopkin, James Taylor, Badfinger, and Billy Preston...
as a single in October 1970 and rose to number 67 on the US charts. (A previously unreleased acoustic demo of "Carolina in My Mind" was issued as a bonus track on the 2010 Apple Records remastering of James Taylor.)
Different versions of both this song and "Something in the Way She Moves" were remade by Taylor for use on his 1976 Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits (James Taylor album)
Greatest Hits is singer-songwriter James Taylor's eighth album. Released on November 1, 1976. To this day, it is the best-selling album of his career....
album because of the difficulty of obtaining licensing rights from Apple during the 1970s and because of uncertainty about where the Apple masters were. The new recordings were done in October 1976 at The Sound Factory
The Sound Factory
The Sound Factory is a recording studio in Hollywood, California.The Sound Factory was built in the 1960s on Selma Avenue in Hollywood. At the time, it served as the home of Moonglow Records and the Moonglow Recording Studio...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and production was again done by Peter Asher.
This rendition of "Carolina in My Mind" had a slower tempo than the original, and accompanying Taylor on acoustic guitar were experienced LA session musicians Dan Dugmore on pedal steel (highlighted in the descending note sequences at the song's conclusion), Lee Sklar on bass, Russ Kunkel
Russ Kunkel
Russell Kunkel , also known as Russ Kunkel, is an American drummer and producer who has worked as a session musician with a number of well-known artists.Kunkel was born in Pittsburgh, PA...
on drums, Clarence McDonald
Clarence McDonald
Clarence "Mac" McDonald is a Los Angeles based pianist, composer, arranger, and producer. He is a co-writer/co-publisher of the #1 Billboard and Grammy nominated song "Everything To Me" performed by Monica. Most recently McDonald performed on the all-star benefit album entitled Jazz For Japan...
on piano, Andrew Gold
Andrew Gold
Andrew Maurice Gold was an American singer, musician and songwriter. His works include the Top 10 single "Lonely Boy" , as well as the singles "Thank You for Being a Friend" , and "Never Let Her Slip Away" ....
on harmonium, and Byron Berline
Byron Berline
Byron Berline is an American fiddle player.-Biography:Berline started playing the fiddle at age five and quickly developed a talent for it. In 1965, he recorded the album Pickin' and Fiddlin with the Dillards...
on fiddle. Backing vocals were handled by Gold and Taylor. Greatest Hits became a diamond record, selling over 11 millions copies in the U.S. by 2001, and this is the version of "Carolina in My Mind" that became best known. The remake earned even more critical praise than the original. Bill Janovitz
Bill Janovitz
Bill Janovitz is best known as the singer and guitarist of the alternative rock band Buffalo Tom.-History:After enrolling at the University of Massachusetts, Janovitz formed Buffalo Tom with fellow students Chris Colbourn and Tom Maginnis. A friendship with J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr...
of Allmusic said of the 1976 recording that it "accent[ed] the languid, plaintive, and wistful country melancholy of the song," while in the 1979 Rolling Stone Record Guide, critic Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden is an American writer, music critic, film critic, and poet.Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963...
said that the "stunning" remake showed how much Taylor's singing had strengthened in the intervening years. Biographer White believed that the song benefited from the removal of the original's orchestration.
The 1976 re-recording was also included on Taylor's 2003 compilation The Best of James Taylor
The Best of James Taylor
The compilation album The Best of James Taylor is the singer-songwriter James Taylor's twentieth album, released in 2003.The record is a Warner Bros. release, and as such emphasizes Taylor's recordings for that label; fifteen of the twenty tracks on the album are from his time with Warner Bros. The...
.
Later appearances
"Carolina in My Mind" became a staple of Taylor's concert repertoire, appearing in the set listSet list
A set list, or setlist, is a document that lists the songs that a band or musical artist intends to play, or has played, during a specific concert performance...
of virtually every Taylor tour.
A 1992 performance of it was included near the end of Taylor's first live album, 1993's Live
Live (James Taylor album)
Live is singer-songwriter James Taylor's fifteenth album, and first live album. Released in 1993, this double CD presents selections from 14 shows during a November 1992 tour...
. The audience reaction demonstrates that the song has great popularity despite never being a hit single: there is immediate cheering as the first notes are picked out on Taylor's acoustic guitar, and further cheering as soon as he starts to sing. By this era Taylor's always-excellent touring band was using four backing singers. Arnold McCuller
Arnold McCuller
Arnold McCuller is an American vocalist, record producer, born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. While establishing his own career as a singer, and working as a very busy session musician, McCuller has become best known for his work as a back-up singer for famous artists with long careers, including...
, David Lasley
David Lasley
David Lasley is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his contributions as a background singer for such artists as Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor and Luther Vandross....
, Kate Markowitz
Kate Markowitz
Kate Markowitz is an American singer-songwriter. Markowitz is perhaps best known as a back-up vocalist who has recorded and performed with a number of singers, most notably James Taylor but also Willy DeVille, Shawn Colvin, Mylène Farmer, Don Henley, Billy Joel, k.d. lang, Lyle Lovett, Graham...
, and Valerie Carter
Valerie Carter
Valerie Carter to James J and Dorothy Carter, is an American singer-songwriter...
featured strongly in the arrangement, continuing the emphasis on the song's harmonies that had begun with the 1976 remake. Their part was especially prominent in the concluding refrains as the final words, "in my mind", were prolonged for emphasis at the end of the song: i-i-i-i-in my mind.
The song has been included in a number of Taylor's concert video releases, including 1979–1982's James Taylor: In Concert at the Blossom Music Festival, 1988's James Taylor: In Concert at Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
's Colonial Theatre, and 2002's Pull Over. It was performed in collaboration with the Dixie Chicks
Dixie Chicks
The Dixie Chicks are an American country band which has also successfully crossed over into other genres. The band is composed of founding members Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Erwin Robison, and lead singer Natalie Maines...
in 2002 for the CMT Crossroads program. In 2004, Taylor and the Chicks again performed the song together during the Vote for Change
Vote for Change
The Vote for Change tour was a politically-motivated American popular music concert tour that took place in October 2004. The tour was presented by MoveOn.org to benefit America Coming Together. The tour was held in swing states and was designed to encourage people to register and vote...
tour, with Taylor dedicating it to former North Carolina Senator and U.S. vice-presidential candidate John Edwards
John Edwards
Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...
. On the 2006 A Musicares Person of the Year Tribute Honoring James Taylor tribute show and video release, "Carolina in My Mind" was performed by Alison Krauss
Alison Krauss
Alison Maria Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in...
and Jerry Douglas
Jerry Douglas (musician)
Jerry Douglas is an American record producer and resonator guitar player. Called "Dobro's matchless contemporary master," by The New York Times, and lauded as "my favorite musician" by John Fogerty, Douglas is one of the world’s most renowned Dobro players.-Career:In addition to his twelve solo...
. The song was then included in Taylor's 2006–2007 One Man Band Tour; accompanied only by Larry Goldings
Larry Goldings
-Life and career:Goldings was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was a classical music enthusiast, and Larry studied classical piano until the age of twelve. While in high school at Concord Academy, he attended a program at the Eastman School of Music. During this period Erroll Garner,...
on various keyboard instruments, Taylor introduced the song with visual material and by relating its composition on Formentera and other locations. He talked about the Karin of the lyrics, whom he had known only briefly and never seen since, and related various humorous notions about how to find her again. One such performance was documented on the 2007 album and video release One Man Band. Another live performance appeared on Taylor's 2010 live CD/DVD combo release with Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
, Live at The Troubadour
Live at the Troubadour (Carole King and James Taylor)
Live at the Troubadour is a live album by Carole King and James Taylor released in 2010. The album was recorded at The Troubadour in West Hollywood in November 2007 to celebrate the venue's 50th anniversary...
.
Other versions
While "Carolina in My Mind" did not gain much attention from the public upon its original release, it did from other artists. It was a number 29 hit on the American country charts and number 3 hit in Canada in 1969 for North Carolinian singer George Hamilton IVGeorge Hamilton IV
George Hege Hamilton IV is an American country musician. He began performing in the late 1950s as a teen idol, later switching to country music in the early 1960s.-Biography:Hamilton was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina...
. The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers are country-influenced rock and roll performers, known for steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing...
also released it as a single in 1969, under the variant title "Carolina on My Mind", but it failed to chart; this was later collected on their 1994 box set Heartaches and Harmonies
Heartaches and Harmonies
Heartaches and Harmonies is a compilation box-set CD by the rock and roll duo The Everly Brothers, released in 1994. It contains 103 songs spanning from a 1951 radio performance of "Don't Let Our Love Die" through 1990. It contains their early Cadence hits and a large representation of their...
. Evie Sands
Evie Sands
Evie Sands is a Brooklyn-born singer, songwriter and guitarist, whose career began as a young teenager in the mid-1960s...
also touched upon it in her 1969 album Any Way That You Want Me.
The song was recorded by Melanie
Melanie Safka
Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk is an American singer-songwriter. Known professionally as simply Melanie, she is best known for her hits "Brand New Key", "Ruby Tuesday" and "Lay Down ".-Early career:...
on her hit April 1970 album Candles in the Rain
Candles In The Rain
Candles in the Rain is singer Melanie's third album, released in 1970. The album produced Melanie's first Top Ten single in North America, "Lay Down ", which was inspired by the crowd's reaction to her performance at Woodstock...
; the arrangement and vocal phrasing are different from Taylor's, and Allmusic writes that her version "exist[s] on an entirely separate plane from the original". It was also recorded in more conventional folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
form by John Denver
John Denver
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. , known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After growing up in numerous locations with his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success...
on his May 1970 album Take Me to Tomorrow
Take Me to Tomorrow
Take Me to Tomorrow is the second album recorded by American singer-songwriter John Denver released in May 1970.-Track listing:All tracks composed by John Denver; except where indicated# "Take Me to Tomorrow"# "Isabel"# "Follow Me"...
. Philadelphia-based pop group Crystal Mansion released a version in October 1970 that reached number 73 on the US pop singles chart. Dawn
Tony Orlando and Dawn
Tony Orlando and Dawn was a pop music group that was popular in the 1970s. Their signature hits include "Candida", "Knock Three Times", "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree", and "He Don't Love You ".-History:...
included a version of it on their 1970 debut album Candida
Candida (album)
-2005 CD edition:In 2005, a 25th anniversary compilation was released featuring the original track listing plus nine bonus tracks.-Production:*Arranged by Norman Bergen*Produced by Hank Medress, Phil & Mitch Margo and Jay Siegel*Engineered by Billy Radice...
. Around the same time, Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell
Glen Travis Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.During his 50 years in show...
was performing the song as a speeded-up country duet with Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
on his popular television series The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour
The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour
The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour was an American network television music and comedy variety show hosted by singer Glen Campbell from January 1969 through June 1972 on CBS. He was offered the show after he hosted a 1968 summer replacement for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour...
; this was later collected on his 2007 video release Good Times Again.
The song subsequently became so identified with Taylor that other artists recorded it less frequently, but still by the late 2000s there were some 60 albums (including compilation reappearances and albums from Taylor himself) that featured it.
Sense of place
"Carolina in My Mind" is strongly associated with its geographical place and has been called an unofficial state anthem of North CarolinaNorth Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
. Taylor had grown up in Carrboro
Carrboro, North Carolina
Carrboro is a town in Orange County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 19,582 at the 2010 census. The town, which is part of the Durham-Chapel Hill metropolitan statistical area, was named after North Carolina industrialist Julian Shakespeare Carr.Located near Chapel Hill and...
, outside Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
, where his father taught at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine
University of North Carolina School of Medicine
The University of North Carolina School of Medicine is a professional school within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It offers a Doctor of Medicine degree along with combined Doctor of Medicine / Doctor of Philosophy or Doctor of Medicine / Master of Public Health degrees.It is one...
. Taylor later reflected: "Chapel Hill, the piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people." More broadly, the song has been associated with The South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
. Author James L. Peacock sees it akin to Stephen Foster
Stephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...
's "My Old Kentucky Home
My Old Kentucky Home
"My Old Kentucky Home" is a minstrel song by Stephen Foster , probably composed in 1852. It was published as "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night" in January 1853 by Firth, Pond, & Co. of New York...
" and other songs and works of literature in establishing "the South's sense of place", even if that sense is sometimes an exercise in projected nostalgia. Author Ken Emerson also sees a connection to that quintessential American songwriter, with the Taylor song resembling Foster's "Sitting By My Own Cabin Door" in its sense of longing for home amid personal and contextual dislocation. Recognizing the association with the state, the Chapel Hill Museum opened an ongoing exhibit "Carolina in My Mind: The James Taylor Story" in 2003 that includes memorabilia from Taylor's years in the area and a video documentary.
"Carolina in My Mind" is an unofficial song of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
. It is played at athletic events and pep rallies, and is sung by the graduating class at every university graduation. In October 2006, Taylor returned to the campus to receive the school's Carolina Performing Arts Lifetime Achievement Award. University chancellor James Moeser
James Moeser
James Charles Moeser was the ninth chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a trained concert organist...
said to Taylor, "We love you. We love what you do and how you represent this university." Taylor said, "It's strange but somehow compelling to come home and sing it. It draws a line through my own personal history and connects me again to a place that I go to in my dreams, a landscape that will forever be a part of me." The song is also frequently covered by popular UNC campus a cappella
Collegiate a cappella
Collegiate a cappella ensembles are student-run and -directed singing groups that perform entirely without instruments. Such groups can be found at many colleges and universities in the United States, and increasingly worldwide....
groups, including the Clef Hangers
UNC Clef Hangers
The UNC Clef Hangers is the oldest a cappella group at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sponsored by the UNC General Alumni Association, the group was founded by Tom Terrell and Barry Saunders in 1977, and was originally called the Morrison Dorm Singers.The first Clef Hangers...
. The Clef Hangers'
UNC Clef Hangers
The UNC Clef Hangers is the oldest a cappella group at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sponsored by the UNC General Alumni Association, the group was founded by Tom Terrell and Barry Saunders in 1977, and was originally called the Morrison Dorm Singers.The first Clef Hangers...
Fall Concert 2007 performances of the song featured future American Idol season 8
American Idol (season 8)
The eighth season of American Idol premiered on January 13, 2009, and concluded on May 20, 2009. Judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson continued to judge the show's contestants, along with Ryan Seacrest as host. The season introduced Kara DioGuardi as the fourth judge on the Idol...
finalist Anoop Desai
Anoop Desai
Anoop Desai is an American singer-songwriter best known for his time as a contestant on the eighth season of American Idol. Motivated by the death of his friend Eve Carson, Desai auditioned for American Idol. Desai made American Idol history by being the first ever 13th finalist on American Idol...
handling the lead vocal on the closing part of the song. The Clef Hangers
UNC Clef Hangers
The UNC Clef Hangers is the oldest a cappella group at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sponsored by the UNC General Alumni Association, the group was founded by Tom Terrell and Barry Saunders in 1977, and was originally called the Morrison Dorm Singers.The first Clef Hangers...
, joined by university chancellor Holden Thorp
Holden Thorp
Herbert Holden Thorp is a chemist, inventor, musician, professor, and entrepreneur who is the tenth and current chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . He began in that position on July 1, 2008, succeeding James Moeser, and, at age 43, was noted at the time as being among...
, again performed it in March 2009 at the first anniversary memorial service for murdered student president Eve Carson.
The 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
, stationed at Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg (North Carolina)
Fort Bragg is a major United States Army installation, in Cumberland and Hoke counties, North Carolina, U.S., mostly in Fayetteville but also partly in the town of Spring Lake. It was also a census-designated place in the 2010 census and had a population of 39,457. The fort is named for Confederate...
in North Carolina, sponsors a group of singing soldiers known as the 82nd Airborne Division All-American Chorus. They recorded a version of the song on their 2009 album A Soldier's Heart.
Some of the song's lyrics are used as an epigraph
Epigraph (literature)
In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component. The epigraph may serve as a preface, as a summary, as a counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon, either to invite comparison or to enlist a conventional...
in the 2001 Celebrate the States series volume on North Carolina and in the 1983 reference book America the Quotable. News providers have used "Carolina in My Mind" as a title for stories about the state's politics, economy, and outdoor activities. The song's geographical association also appears in fiction, including in Carly Alexander's 2004 novel The Eggnog Chronicles and North Carolinian Sharyn McCrumb
Sharyn McCrumb
Sharyn McCrumb is an American writer whose books celebrate the history and folklore of Appalachia. McCrumb is the winner of numerous literary awards, and the author of the Elizabeth McPherson series, the Ballad series, and the St...
's 2006 novel St. Dale.
Although it was North Carolina that inspired the song, it is popular in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
too, tying for first place on a South Carolina Information Highway's construction of a soundtrack regarding the state. It has been used as the theme for the television coverage of the annual Family Circle Cup
Family Circle Cup
The Family Circle Cup is a WTA Tour affiliated professional tennis tournament for women, held every year since 1973. The tournament is currently played on the green clay courts at the Daniel Island Tennis Center in Charleston, South Carolina, USA...
tennis event in South Carolina.
"Carolina in My Mind" is also popular among the Carolinian diaspora; prize-winning North Carolinian writer Jill McCorkle
Jill McCorkle
Jill Collins McCorkle is an American short story writer, and novelist.She graduated from University of North Carolina, in 1980, where she studied with Max Steele, Lee Smith, and Louis D...
, living in Massachusetts, refers to it as "the chosen anthem of misplaced Carolinians." In Kathy Reichs
Kathy Reichs
Kathleen Joan Toelle "Kathy" Reichs is an American crime writer, forensic anthropologist and academic . She is a professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, but is currently on indefinite leave...
' initial Temperance Brennan
Temperance Brennan
Temperance Daesee Brennan is a fictional character created by author Kathy Reichs, and is the hero of her crime novel series . She was introduced in Reichs' first novel, Déjà Dead, which was published in 1997...
novel, Déjà Dead
Déjà Dead
Déjà Dead is the first novel by Kathy Reichs starring Temperance Brennan. It won the 1998 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel.-Plot:When the meticulously dismembered body of a woman is found discovered in the ground of an abandoned monastery which is too "decomposed for standard autopsy", an...
, the protagonist (like the author) is from North Carolina but working in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
as a forensic anthropologist, and alludes to the song as part of a Carolinian reverie in the midst of a horrid murder case. One person who had moved to California said, "Still to this day I get nostalgic whenever I hear it on the radio. It's a song that makes anyone who grew up in North Carolina homesick. In a way, it's become an anthem song for people who left the state."