Carolina in My Mind

A track from his self-titled debut album, James Taylor wrote and recorded this song in 1968 while staying in an apartment in London. In this song, James sings about longing to return to North Carolina, the place he and his siblings called home in their childhood days. He says it’s about “that feeling of being called away to another place.” There has been a great deal of speculation as to the identity of Karin, the woman he sings about in the line, “Karin, she’s a silver sun.” Until 2009, Taylor would not reveal her identity, leading listeners to create their own theories: Some felt that Karin was a poetic name for Carolina, others believed that Karin was a beautiful young woman that James met while on a trip to Spain, and many have said that this song is about drugs, since at the time it was written, Taylor was trying so hard to kick a serious addiction to heroin.  Taylor cleared this up in a concert screened by BBC Television in March 2009, when he revealed the identity of the Karin alluded to in this song. The album was recorded in London the same time the Beatles recorded their White Album and was released on their Apple label; at some point Taylor skipped across to the island of Formentera, where he met Karin. This appears to have been a fleeting relationship, or perhaps simply a meeting, but he never saw her again. She was Scandinavian, about twenty-four years old, and had shoulder length blonde hair, reminiscent of Annalena Nordstrom in the Wishbone Ash song “Blowin’ Free.” Her ghost was still haunting him 35 years later, and with the advent of the Internet he decided better late than never, located a police artist and commissioned him to draw a sketch of what she would look like after all this time. The artist e-mailed him a most unflattering sketch the next day as a joke. Though Taylor was pleased with the real sketch, he said that try as he may he couldn’t stop thinking of her now as a criminal. Sadly, unlike Martin Turner, Taylor appears not to have been reunited with his lady friend, whatever their relationship.  This was Taylor’s first single. He was signed to The Beatles’ Record Company, Apple Records, after pitching his demo to Peter Asher, who was good friends with the band and worked for Apple. “Carolina in My Mind” wasn’t issued as a single until a few months after the album was released, and by that time he was tending a heroin habit in a psychiatric facility, which left him unable to do touring or promotion.  His second album was released in 1970 on his new label, Warner Bros., and it did very well thanks to the hit single “Fire And Rain.” This prompted Apple to re-release “Carolina in My Mind” that year, and this time it reached #67 US.  In the line, “With a holy host of others standing ’round me, still I’m on the dark side of the moon,” the “holy host of others” is The Beatles; Taylor was thrilled to be labelmates with his idols, but still missed his home in North Carolina. (This line preceded the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon, which was released in 1973.)  Paul McCartney played bass and sang harmonies on this song. Taylor said that George Harrison also sang a part, but was not credited on the album. Some subtle strings can be heard on this track. In a Songfacts interview with Taylor’s producer, Peter Asher, he said: “In the case of the Apple James Taylor album, I did specifically think about some kind of orchestrations because I really wanted to establish the fact that he was not just another long-haired folkie with an acoustic guitar. I wanted people to take him seriously as a composer.”