The whole idea is so audacious he even includes in the lyrics an apology. If I’m up and gone to Carolina in my mind Now with a holy host of others standing ’round meĪnd it seems like it goes on like this forever The lyrics reflect the incongruity of it all: The song’s bridge - you know the one, with that oblique allusion to a “holy host of others” - is both a reference to John, Paul, George, and Ringo, those demigods of pop, and an acknowledgement that even they could not keep Taylor’s mind off home. In this almost shocking betrayal of youthful dreams come true, Taylor wrote “Carolina in My Mind” - an unadulterated batch of homesickness distilled into song. In this first blush of success, Taylor’s mind turned away from the splendor of achievement and trained itself on home. Surrounded by what were surely some of his idols in the best studio in the world, did Taylor take this opportunity to write a song called “Carolina Will Never Be in My Mind Again Because I’m the Hottest Thing in the World?” No. And so Taylor soon found himself in London’s famed Trident studios, where his new label bosses were in the next room over recording The White Album. During these trying times, North Carolina remained for Taylor a geographic remedy.įor Taylor, landing a record deal of any sort at this point must have seemed earth-shattering, but when he moved to London in 1967 and did indeed sign a record deal, the event was perhaps singular in the changes it foretold: Taylor was the first American on the new label Apple Records, founded and run by a small band out of Liverpool called the Beatles. As a teenager, Taylor moved north for a fragmented and somewhat disastrous stint in boarding school (read: mental breakdown), came home for a spell at Chapel Hill High, moved to New York City, picked up a nasty drug habit, then returned to North Carolina again in an effort to sober up. His father worked at the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine, serving for a time as its dean. At age 3, he moved here with his family from Boston, Massachusetts, settling in a Chapel Hill home up a wooded rise from Morgan Creek. North Carolina rightfully lays claim to Taylor as our own. Because when I hear “Carolina in My Mind,” Carolina actually is in my mind. And, if it were up to me, it would be our official state song. And it’s beautiful, memorable, and finely wrought and wistful, sweet, and haunting and even a little dark at times. It has followed me across the country for years like some nostalgic albatross, appearing when least expected. So I mean no disrespect when I say this, but I have never in my life heard “The Old North State.” James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind,” on the other hand, has snuck into my ears at least a thousand times.

I’ve perused the lyrics: They defend the state against defamers, celebrate the inner beauty of Carolina girls, and employ the word “Hurrah!” 20 times, all things I am proud to put my support behind.

I’m sure “The Old North State” is a fine song. North Carolina’s official state song, the five-verse power-rouser “The Old North State,” was adopted as such by the General Assembly of 1927.

Going to carolina in my mind