Caroline
Songs about girls. Songs about girls. There have always been songs about girls. In true troubadorial fashion, I am happy to present three separate and disparate instances where boys are singing about girls who all happened to be named Caroline.
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Song 1:
Caroline has a dime
She tries to call a friend now
But none of her calls are getting through
She lives in a room alone
Her best friend's her imagination
She has dreams instead of moments now
Caroline on the line but never getting through
She's getting tired of reaching out
Every day the same display
The world caught in her eyes
Caroline always seems to cry
She has a window there
It looks into a world of terror
The glass is several miles thick
Her sleep is dangerous
It keeps her mind from her body
And now she never wants to wake
Recorded around 1990 by Jawbreaker.
She tries to call a friend now
But none of her calls are getting through
She lives in a room alone
Her best friend's her imagination
She has dreams instead of moments now
Caroline on the line but never getting through
She's getting tired of reaching out
Every day the same display
The world caught in her eyes
Caroline always seems to cry
She has a window there
It looks into a world of terror
The glass is several miles thick
Her sleep is dangerous
It keeps her mind from her body
And now she never wants to wake
Recorded around 1990 by Jawbreaker.
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Song 2:
Caroline, we don't have much time
Mercy lies
in the one you hide
Caroline, we don't have much time
Mercy lies
in the one you hide
Caroline, we don't have much time
Mercy lies
in the ones we hide.
You don't need to be outside
in the ones we hide.
You don't need to be outside
You can stand with me in line.
Recorded in 1995 by Low.
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Song 3:
Where did your long hair go
Where is the girl I used to know
How could you lose that happy glow
Oh, Caroline no
Who took that look away
I remember how you used to say
You'd never change, but that's not true
Oh, Caroline you
Break my heart
I want to go and cry
Its so sad to watch a sweet thing die
Oh, Caroline why
Could I ever find in you again
Things that made me love you so much then
Could we ever bring em back once they have gone
Oh, Caroline no
Where is the girl I used to know
How could you lose that happy glow
Oh, Caroline no
Who took that look away
I remember how you used to say
You'd never change, but that's not true
Oh, Caroline you
Break my heart
I want to go and cry
Its so sad to watch a sweet thing die
Oh, Caroline why
Could I ever find in you again
Things that made me love you so much then
Could we ever bring em back once they have gone
Oh, Caroline no
Recorded in 1966 by Brian Wilson
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Three songs, three Carolines, yet one gets the sense from just reading about her that she may have been the same Caroline for each of the boys (despite the 30 year gap in time.) What is it about her that has them all so scared?
In the Jawbreaker song there is a real urgency, his Caroline seems to be locking herself up tightly despite her efforts to reach outward. The world is caught in her eyes, like an irritating sliver of debris, and is something that she must frantically be trying to get out of them. She is alone, yes, and her best friend is her imagination - so much so that she does not even live in a world of "moments" but, rather, that of "dreams" and is growing increasingly more detached. The singer loves her, that is plain to see, and the air of worry that hangs and chokes the scene is echoed among the other two songs. (And, as for the photo: a search provided lots of great photos of Blake, and the old band. I think the capsized ashtray captures their spirit, and his, better than just about anything else.)
Alan Sparhawk of Low sings about his Caroline with a brief touch, a fingertip on her kneecap rather than a palm on the small of her back. Again, an urgency is embedded in the song: We don't have much time. The last line could be an allusion to waiting in line for a movie, or something equally mundane and normal, yet I am always brought back to the mercy that lies in the ones that she is hiding. This must be a line for something a bit more important. Sparhawk, being a religious man, could be thinking of a queue for Heaven, or waiting to buy a bus transfer, but whatever it may be, his Caroline seems caught and pinned in a posture not unlike that of the prior Caroline. The simple "You dont need to be outside" is vague enough to probably point back to Jawbreaker's Caroline who is, by no stretch of the word, an inwardly living outsider. Like the first song, the second seems beckons her from herself to join him.
In the Jawbreaker song there is a real urgency, his Caroline seems to be locking herself up tightly despite her efforts to reach outward. The world is caught in her eyes, like an irritating sliver of debris, and is something that she must frantically be trying to get out of them. She is alone, yes, and her best friend is her imagination - so much so that she does not even live in a world of "moments" but, rather, that of "dreams" and is growing increasingly more detached. The singer loves her, that is plain to see, and the air of worry that hangs and chokes the scene is echoed among the other two songs. (And, as for the photo: a search provided lots of great photos of Blake, and the old band. I think the capsized ashtray captures their spirit, and his, better than just about anything else.)
Alan Sparhawk of Low sings about his Caroline with a brief touch, a fingertip on her kneecap rather than a palm on the small of her back. Again, an urgency is embedded in the song: We don't have much time. The last line could be an allusion to waiting in line for a movie, or something equally mundane and normal, yet I am always brought back to the mercy that lies in the ones that she is hiding. This must be a line for something a bit more important. Sparhawk, being a religious man, could be thinking of a queue for Heaven, or waiting to buy a bus transfer, but whatever it may be, his Caroline seems caught and pinned in a posture not unlike that of the prior Caroline. The simple "You dont need to be outside" is vague enough to probably point back to Jawbreaker's Caroline who is, by no stretch of the word, an inwardly living outsider. Like the first song, the second seems beckons her from herself to join him.
The Beach Boys made smiley music, smiley smiling music filled with the sunbursting goodness of summer, the beach, and girls. Brian Wilson was often frustrated with the group and recorded his own songs, of which Caroline, No was one. His is a pop song, pure and sweet and just under the standard 3:00 long, and in it he laments the loss of Caroline and her innocence. She's shriveling, realistically, in tangible ways as his words coo and cuddle with the warmth of the percussion, and when he finally reaches the "its so sad to watch a sweet thing die" we know that it's not the real Caroline but the imagined. Like Humbert's Lolita differing from the actual Dolores, there are in every person two separate peoples - the actual and the perceived (and can be subdivided further, of course, into the actual as perceived by the individual, the actual as perceived by others, and the unactual as misperceived by the individual as well as the unactual as misperceived by the others) and it is not really the death of Caroline, body and bones, but the death of her youth, shining and radiant but now fading with age and hair length. Brian sings a song that all boys have sung.
There are more Carolines, real or perceived, and there are even a lot more songs about a lot more Carolines. These three, though, stick out like bright red blood speckles in a dull lump of phlegm compared to the others because, well, a person who likes Jawbreaker probably has an album or two by Low (oddly enough) and the type of person who likes both of those bands no doubt has a taste for the Beach Boys and it is only a matter of time before this little trifecta of Carolines take on an odd shade of color. The songs mix together and one informs the other and it is strange to have Punk Rock, its polar opposite (in Low), and the more historic rootwork of both of those contemporary bands (in Brian Wilson) all singing about the same girl in such a markedly similar, eerily mirrored way. Are Carolines more prone to be pined over? I haven't met many, or any, but the songs, oh those songs!
