Taylor Swift has released her new song “Carolina.” She wrote the track for Where the Crawdads Sing, a forthcoming adaptation of Delia Owens’ 2018 novel of the same name, and previously teased it in a trailer for the movie. Aaron Dessner co-produced the track with Swift. Give it a listen below.
Along with co-producing “Carolina,” Dessner plays banjo, bass guitar, mandolin, piano, and synthesizer on the track. In addition, he co-engineered “Carolina” with mixer Jonathan Low. The single also features fiddle from Reid Jenkins, the New York musician who’s in the band the Morningsiders and whose older sister is Cassandra Jenkins.
“Carolina” follows Swift’s 2020 studio albums Evermore and Folklore. Since sharing those records, Swift has been hard at work on the expansive rollout campaigns for her re-recorded “Taylor’s Version” editions of Fearless and Red. The latter album includes a 10-minute-long version of the fan-favorite track “All Too Well” that went on to set a Billboard record as the longest No. 1 song. This past February, Swift joined Ed Sheeran for a new remix of his = song “The Joker and the Queen.”
On May 18, Swift received a Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, from New York University with the graduating class of 2022. She also delivered a commencement speech for NYU students and guests at the school’s graduation ceremony. In it, Swift touched on how to face backlash, learning to accept being “cringe,” and the challenges that students may face after graduation. “I’m… 90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22,’” she joked at one point.
NYU’s Clive Davis Institute recently completed its first-ever class on Swift, taught by Rolling Stone staff writer Brittany Spanos (who has also contributed to Pitchfork). The class traced the evolution of Swift’s career as a songwriter and entrepreneur, discussed the exploitation of youth and girlhood within the entertainment industry at large, examined the politics of race in contemporary pop music, and considered the legacy of country and pop music, among other subjects. The course was chaired by music writer and artist Jason King (who has also contributed to Pitchfork).
Swift hasn’t formally announced her next album in the “Taylor’s Version” series, but she has shared two re-recorded 1989 songs: “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” and “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version).” The former track was previously teased in the trailer for the new Prime Video series The Summer I Turned Pretty. Meanwhile, the latter song was previewed in a teaser trailer for the children’s movie Spirit Untamed.
