Here’s How Taylor Swift Fans Correctly Predicted That "Carolina" Drops Today

According to fans, Taylor Swift has been suspiciously silent since the release of Red (Taylor's Version) last November. The music icon was last spotted in Brooklyn, New York with a keyboard in hand in February 2022 before heading to New York City's Tribeca Film Festival in June. With four more re-recorded albums to be released, SwiftTok has come up with plenty of theories about "blondie's" next move. The main discourse is whether the singer is dropping 1989 (Taylor's Version) or Speak Now (Taylor's Version) after her songs "Wildest Dreams" and "Enchanted" went viral on TikTok and she surprise-dropped "This Love (Taylor's Version)" for The Summer I Turned Pretty.

But, because Taylor Swift is Taylor Swift, she stopped posting online in Reputation-era fashion and caught fans totally off-guard when she teased new music in an unexpected form. On Tuesday, March 22, her haunting new song "Carolina" played in the first trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of "Where The Crawdads Sing." Taylor then posted on Instagram for the first time in months, where she revealed the track was produced by her Folklore and Evermore collaborator, Aaron Dessner.

"I knew I wanted to be a part of [Where The Crawdads Sing] from the musical side. I wrote the song 'Carolina' alone and asked my friend @aarondessner to produce it. I wanted to create something haunting and ethereal to match this mesmerizing story," the "I Bet You Think About Me" singer wrote.

Three months after she posted the initial clip of "Carolina" on Instagram, Taylor revealed that the song would drop at midnight on Thursday, June 23 via her Instagram story.

Naturally, Swifties everywhere are already wondering about the details surrounding the release. Here's everything we know about Taylor Swift's new song, "Carolina."

What is "Carolina" about?

Taylor described the song as "haunting," which pretty much matches the vibe of Delia Owen's novel that the film is based on. Per Billboard, Where The Crawdads Sing follows Kya, a girl who learns to survive by herself in a North Carolina marsh after she's been abandoned by her entire family. As she grows older, she becomes romantically involved with two men in town, and the story grows more complex when one of them is found dead — and she's accused of his murder. It'd make sense for Taylor to pull inspiration from the novel for the song she penned.

"You didn't see me here, they never did see me here," Taylor sings in the trailer. "There are places I will never ever go / Things that only Carolina will ever know."

The movie's director, Olivia Newman, similarly described the song as haunting in a June 2022 live stream with Reese Witherspoon, Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Taylor John Smith. "What was so haunting about [the song] is that you have a very specific feeling when the book ends, which we really wanted to capture at the end of the movie as well. We wanted to leave audiences with that same sort of emotional feeling and her song just leans right into that," Olivia explained. "So, 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."

When does "Carolina" come out?

Taylor confirmed that the track would be released on Thursday, June 23, 2022, at midnight, three weeks before the film's release on July 15, 2022. However, word of the drop date was speculated by fans even before then. On June 21, 2022, the official Instagram account for Where The Crawdads Sing posted hidden messages with special characters highlighting certain letters in their captions across 12 posts. Day 1 Swifties know that Taylor used to similarly create hidden messages for each song in her album lyric booklets — so she could totally be behind this tease. Fan accounts @blessedswifty, @likechildrenrun, and @swifferupdates on Twitter seemed to have cracked the code when they put together each caption's hidden letters, which spell out "This Thursday."

How was the song made?

On June 13, 2022, the movie's producer, Reese Witherspoon, hosted a live stream with its lead actors Daisy Edgar-Jones and Taylor John Smith as well as director Olivia Newman. Of course, they chatted a bit about "Carolina" and how Taylor presented them with the song for the movie.

"I mean, I couldn't believe it either, that she had gone and written this song out of just pure inspiration and sort of said 'I don't know if you like it, but here it is,'" Olivia explained. "[She] wrote this gorgeous letter to us explaining how they chose instruments that were only available before 1953 and she recorded it in one take the way they recorded songs at the time."

For more info on the movie itself, catch the whole live stream below.

How long is "Carolina"?

Rumors of a 7-minute and 43-second runtime for "Carolina" started swirling the internet in March. Fans had quite the reaction to the alleged runtime, which definitely seems possible since she went No. 1 with her 10-minute rendition of "All Too Well."

Taylor and her team have yet to confirm the actual run time for the track.

Is this Taylor's first song for a motion picture soundtrack?

Nope — Taylor has penned quite a few songs for movie soundtracks over the years. She's written "Crazier" and "You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" for The Hannah Montana Movie (2009), "Today Was a Fairytale" for Valentine's Day (2010), "Safe and Sound" and "Eyes Open" for The Hunger Games (2012), "Sweeter Than Fiction" for One Chance (2013), and "I Don't Wanna Live Forever (featuring Zayn Malik)" for Fifty Shades Darker (2016).

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