Taylor Swift Only Used Instruments Available Before 1953 to Make ‘Carolina’ Authentic to ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’

Where the Crawdads Sing was released in movie theaters on July 15. For Where the Crawdads Sing, Taylor Swift wrote and recorded an original song called “Carolina.” To make “Carolina” as authentic as possible, Swift only used instruments made before 1953 when recording the song.

Taylor Swift only used certain instruments to make the song ‘Carolina’

Where the Crawdads Sing is based on a novel of the same name by Delia Owens, and the film stars Daisy Edgar-Jones. Before the movie premiered, Entertainment Weekly held a round table with Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, producer Reese Witherspoon, and director Olivia Newman.

In the roundtable, Newman discussed how Swift made “Carolina,” an official song used in the movie.

“She talked about how she wanted it to feel like this haunting, gothic, lullaby, and she used instruments that were only available before 1953, and she recorded it in all one take the way they recorded songs at the time,” Newman said. “She really put so much thought into both the tonality of the song and the way in which she recorded it. It was so moving to me.”

How ‘Carolina’ was included in ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’

In the round table for Entertainment Weekly, Witherspoon shared how Swift’s song became part of Where the Crawdads Sing.

“We got a call that Taylor had been so inspired by the book and read the book, and she heard the movie was coming out, that when she was with her partners and they were writing the folklore album, they wrote a song specifically for this movie,” Witherspoon said.

She added, “It’s so haunting. It’s so beautiful. It’s so accurate. We were just the benevolent receivers of this incredible artistic gift.”

Taylor Swift wrote ‘Carolina’ in 2020

In 2020, Swift released two albums called folklore and evermore. While “Carolina” was not included on the albums, it does sound similar to songs Swift created during that time.

“Carolina” was officially released on June 24. When the song was released, Swift shared that she actually wrote the song in 2020 around when she was working on folklore and evermore.

“About a year & half ago I wrote a song about the story of a girl who always lived on the outside, looking in. Figuratively & literally. The juxtaposition of her loneliness & independence. Her curiosity & fear all tangled up. Her persisting gentleness & the world’s betrayal of it,” Swift wrote in a tweet.

In another tweet, Swift wrote, “I wrote this one alone in the middle of the night and then @AaronDessner and I meticulously worked on a sound that we felt would be authentic to the moment when this story takes place. I made a wish that one day you would hear it. ‘Carolina’ is out now.”

Fans of Where the Crawdads Sing can now see the film in movie theaters.