Lyric Interpretation: Caroline

Karen · #1 03-31-2001, 09:46 AM

Okay everyone

... it's time to interpret a song from the Tango in the Night album. This is one of my all-time favorite songs out of Lindsey's library.

Give it your best shot!

Oh... and please feel free to post any quote/quotes from an article or interview that you feel is relevant to this particular song.

Caroline

Written by Lindsey Buckingham.

She's so crazy
She's so lazy
Keeps on coming
Keeps you running

Caroline
Caroline
Time recedes with a fatal drop
Dusty fury on the mountain top
Cut the cord if you can
Caroline
Caroline

She's so cagey
She's so stagey

So attractive
So reactive

Caroline
Caroline
Time recedes with a fatal drop
Dusty fury on the mountain top
Cut the cord if you can
Caroline
Caroline

Caroline
Caroline
Time recedes with a fatal drop
Dusty fury on the mountain top
Cut the cord if you can
Caroline
Caroline
Caroline
Caroline

carolyn81 · #2 03-31-2001, 12:30 PM

I love doing song interps. And this one is about me! Sorta. He got my name wrong, but oh well, close enough

By the way, if you want to see a few more of my own song interpretations, check em out at http://www.glue.umd.edu/~carolyn/etst/interps/index.htm

She's so crazy
She's so lazy
Keeps on coming
Keeps you running

This is a song about an intense, and perhaps sometimes confusing, woman. Already Lindsey points out the duality in her personality. She seems to be persistent as well, so much so that it can be overwhelming. This actually reminds me (don't kill me for saying this) of Livin' La Vida Loca. This has the same element of a woman who is wild and unpredictable, and difficult to be in love with. Of course this song is better by far!

Caroline
Caroline
Time recedes with a fatal drop
Dusty fury on the mountain top
Cut the cord if you can
Caroline
Caroline

Time recedes with a fatal drop... maybe here Lindsey is saying that falling in love with this woman can be fatal... time seems to disappear when he's around her. Dusty fury on the mountain top. A mountain top is, of course, the highest part of the mountain. I think he's describing Caroline's dusty fury. She's wild, full of energy, and she's in a high place. Maybe he's saying she commands respect or is very self assured, something like that. When he says cut the cord if you can, he's implying that she's too much to handle, and you're better off staying away from her.

So attractive
So reactive

Once again, Lindsey describes opposite traits of her personality. Caroline is attractive and desirable, but her personality can be difficult to deal with. I just asked my mom what reactive means (I already know what it means, I just wanted to hear what she would say!) and she said the first thing that came to her mind is "reactive agents", like chemicals in a laboratory. You put two things together, and it causes some kind of reaction. That seems really appropriate here. You put two people together, Caroline and Lindsey, and you get an unpredictable reaction.

Through the end of the song, Lindsey repeats how deadly it can be to fall in love with Caroline, whose unpredictable personality makes it so you're better off not getting caught up with her.

Caroline
Caroline
Time recedes with a fatal drop
Dusty fury on the mountain top
Cut the cord if you can
Caroline
Caroline

Caroline
Caroline
Time recedes with a fatal drop
Dusty fury on the mountain top
Cut the cord if you can
Caroline
Caroline
Caroline
Caroline

Skylark · #3 04-02-2001, 05:32 PM

Hi Karen! I like to do interpretations also...but Iam not really into the musical nuances! My ideas for lyric interps. has to come from something I feel deep inside as I enjoy the music! I like Tango a lot...but this sad song!

As much as I admire the awesome Lindsey BucKINGham as a guitarist, singer/songwriter/brilliant musician/ the lyrics are rather unhappy, but the music he wrote for it is rather nice! I had to play it over and over! So for what it is worth.(please be gentle ).Iam doing this with my limited lyrical and musical knowledge! Luv, ~ Sky ~

My Interpretation of Lindsey's sad little song... "Caroline"... {Carol Ann???)

Perhaps Lindsey is trying tell his girlfriend.....He wants out of this hurtful relationship that he has payed for both emotionally and monetarily! She takes him to the mountain top but than her fury causes them to fall out of love! He tells her its over! She leaves but keeps running back because she wants to come back to their mountain top of wonderful passion when they were good together! But after the love & fun she recedes back to her old ways and Lindsey can't stand this side of her! He is going crazy... she needs him... more than he needs her... at this time!

Please Caroline...cut the cord ( to my life) if you can!!! I'll set you up in a condo, with a car and everything you want...just quit being crazy and so lazy!Get your life together girl! Take the acting lessons you want so bad!
Get to work and I'll pay for them! Caroline is stagey,(putting on an act) and when she hears this idea she
is cagey (clever) wants more than Lindsey can offer her to start over! She is very attractive but so ...reactive (starting over again) she mixes him up and ruins his sanity! LB can't get on with his work until Caroline allows him to cut the cord and get away from her...for good!!! She keeps on coming...always running after him!!!

Caroline loves the prestige of Lindsey's high places! She loves the exciting life as the girlfriend of a handsome, hard working, multi-millionaire Rock and Roll Star from Fleetwood Mac...The Great Lindsey BucKINGham!!!

Well...that's my humble interpretation of what I think Lindsey means! Who really knows? I love his awesome voice and the music is superb! It could have been a pretty musical love song! Tango In the Night is my favorite!

HolidayRoadGirl · #4 04-04-2001, 11:03 PM

Just an addition: There are two lines before "So attractive/So reactive" that were left off the previous messages.

She's so cagey
She's so stagey

These are some of my favorite lines of the song because of the dual meanings of each. "Cagey" can mean either that she hides information or is reticent about opening up, or it could mean that she likes to put her men in emotional cages. "Stagey" could mean that she goes through stages, perhaps erratic mood swings. Or it could mean (and I like to think of it this way) that she acts as if she's always on a stage. Her every word and movement seem staged, possibly insincere. She is the quintessential performer (and therefore a good match for Lindsey himself!).

This is my first posting to an interpretation but I've read the others with great interest, and I'm excited to finally contribute!!
FM Love,
HolidayRoadGirl

Karen · #5 04-05-2001, 07:14 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by HolidayRoadGirl
Just an addition: There are two lines before "So attractive/So reactive" that were left off the previous messages.

Thanks, Holiday Road Girl... I originally copied and pasted the lyrics from the lyric archive. I should have read them first.

Those specific lines from the song are very important.

I'm glad you decided to post your interpretation. I'm also very pleased with everyone's input. You all are doing a fantastic job!!

-Karen

Les · #6 04-06-2001, 02:33 PM

Lindsey once described his song "I Want You" from Go Insane as a "body rhythm" – something that you go to sleep thinking about and you wake up with it being the first thing on your mind. That was a song that presented the conflicting aspects of personalities and love that brought down a relationship. I sort of think of this song in the same way and am drawn to think that the woman in this song is probably the same person to whom most of his Go Insane songs were dedicated. But, in "Caroline," there is more distance between him and this woman at this point, whereas on Go Insane, the break up was very fresh and still very much agonized over. There is not so much of a feeling of deep longing for her here or regret over love lost, but it's more of a description of her that explains why she's lingering on his mind.

She’s so crazy
She’s so lazy

She’s so cagey
She’s so stagey

Both verses leave the strong impression on me that he is struggling with two very different sets of emotions about Caroline. The adjectives he’s chosen to describe her have various meanings or have several different kinds of connotations. For example:

cagey – cautious, shrewd
stagey (stagy) – flamboyantly theatrical
crazy – insane, unusual, impractical, unpredictable, intensely eager or enthusiastic

These behaviors have positive and negative aspects in different kinds of situations, which takes me back to the feeling that he’s a little conflicted and probably means them to represent both the positive and negative. It appears as though he finds her difficult and he doesn’t trust her, but he’s definitely still got her on his mind. He’s both repulsed and attracted.

Keeps on coming
Keeps you running

She’s very persistent, but depending upon what she’s pursuing, that may be good or bad. She keeps you running, perhaps running back to her for more, or running away from her to escape, or just generally running around, edgy, on your toes because it’s difficult to anticipate her moods, actions, behavior.

So attractive
So reactive

Reactive might mean she still responds very strongly to him, but again, that can be in good ways and bad ways. She’s someone he still finds somewhat fascinating to observe.

Time recedes
With a fatal drop

When something recedes it usually becomes more distant or removed, like water from the beach at lowtide. As each day passes, he and Caroline are further separated from the happy times they once had together. Each day may represent one of those fatal drops toward the ultimate death of whatever may remain of their broken relationship.

Dusty fury
On the mountain top
Cut the cord if you can

"Dusty" may be a cocaine reference, recalling "Hey little girl/ leave that little drug alone" from "I Must Go" on Go Insane. "Fury" is a term to describe great anger, rage and passion. Furies are also divine female mythological figures who were fierce and violent. A "dusty fury" may represent some drug-induced ugliness in Caroline (Lindsey discussed that a drug addiction was a source of great difficulty between he and ex, Carol Ann Harris).

In "Big Love" from Tango In The Night Lindsey describes his "house on the hill." I wonder if the "mountain top" may represent his home in the hills here, thus presenting a picture of great discord in the home they once shared.

"Cut the cord if you can." I actually think he’s talking to her and himself in this line. He’s telling her to cut a figurative umbilical cord to him to learn to be on her own again and not depend on him for support or to react to her behavior anymore now that they’re not together. He may also be sort of taunting her to cut her dependence on "dust" (drugs). Finally, since he is writing this song and she clearly still lingers on his mind, I think he may be telling himself to do all that he can on his end to sever ties to her to break whatever cycle of dependence may still be going on between them to which he is wittingly or unwittingly contributing. Any continued reliance or preoccupation with each other isn’t breeding anything healthy now and what they once had seems to be something that Lindsey recognizes needs to be stopped completely. And yet, he’s still calling her name . . . maybe because he can’t let go or maybe because this is, once and for all, goodbye.

Caroline
Caroline
Caroline
Caroline

This a complex set of emotions in this song. I like the way he communicates a whole set of feelings through the use of only a few suggestive and vivid images. This song feels like a burst of emotion or a dream maybe - a few powerful images jump to mind and instantly evoke strong and conflicted feelings, and then they just as quickly depart as the song ends – as he wakes up from the dream or shakes the thought from his head. I like the instrumentation too, which seems to sort of have eastern and jungle rhythms combined. It has what I think of as a "night time" sound – thick, deep, tense, powerful, smoldering.

Barbara · #7 04-07-2001, 02:52 PM

Great Stuff! I hardly can add anything to these ideas.

I agree with Les that this was a follow-up to Go Insane and is about Carol Ann Harris. As she said, it seems to express feelings that are not as painfully fresh as the Go Insane songs and in retrospect is more about the reality of the situation after a passage of time than the in-the-moment emotion of it.

Time recedes with a fatal drop could be the dawning realization of the relationship's finality.

Lindsey presents a more critical look at some aspects of Carol Ann's character. The music is stronger, more confident - there's not such a "wounded" feel.

There wasn't much to be found in the Blue Letter Archives that specifically relates to Caroline, only one reference. Here are a couple of excerpts from reviews of Tango that would be pertinent to this discussion:

Philadelphia Inquirer - 4/87
On both "Caroline" and "Family Man," Buckingham repeats the title phrase until it's nearly meaningless, but he surrounds that meaninglessness with rich, thick layers of guitar and drums to achieve a serene, dreamy sound that's hypnotizing.

New York Times - 5/87
(LB) "When the group left the road after the 'Mirage' tour, there were many issues left unresolved. This album is as much about healing our relationships as 'Rumours' was about dissension and pain within the group. The songs look back over a period of time that in retrospect seems almost dreamlike."

Barbara

I can't resist this new "wavey"!

d2brian · #8 04-07-2001, 03:36 PM

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but if you listen real close to the end of the song as it stops and fades out, it sounds like you can hear Lindsey say "What have I done, what have I done, what have I done".

It's really creepy, and I wonder if anyone else has noticed this.

carolyn81 · #9 04-07-2001, 03:46 PM

Yes, I did hear that... it is kinda creepy I guess! At first I thought he was just trying to sound like he was chanting or something, but then I realized he was saying "what have I done"... and that fits right into the song, I think... he could be asking "what have I done to deserve this", or I guess more likely he could be looking back and realizing that he made a big mistake getting into a relationship with this woman. This also brings in the idea that he was kind of drawn into this relationship, and it didn't seem so bad at first, so that only now does he realize how bad it is.

LindseyChick · #10 04-09-2001, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by d2brian
I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but if you listen real close to the end of the song as it stops and fades out, it sounds like you can hear Lindsey say "What have I done, what have I done, what have I done". It's really creepy, and I wonder if anyone else has noticed this.

THAT's almost scary! I really don't have much to say about "Caroline". It's a song about a girlfriend. How, though, did you come across the "what have I done" at the end thing? Now I'm wondering what else is there for us to hear.

Sharon

Les · #11 04-10-2001, 11:17 AM

I've wondered for years what exactly it is he's saying right at the end there when the song fades out. I can hear "what have I done" when I'm specifically trying to hear those words, but at other times, it doesn't quite sound that way to me. I'm glad you brought this up though, cause I've ALWAYS wanted to know what he's chanting there. I have this fantasy of Lindsey doing an online chat thing someday and out of all of the questions he's sure to get, I'll be the strange one asking the completely oddball question -- "WHAT are you saying at the end of Caroline?"