<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/QNjLUPqckWY&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/QNjLUPqckWY&rel=0</a>]]> Some, perhaps even the song's author, see this is song as a homesick account of being stranded in Ibeeza, Spain prior to the release of his first album. But this does not explain the song's universal appeal. We need to scratch below the surface to the young songwriter's subconscious id in the state in which it existed when written in 1968, the author's twentieth year. Indulge yourself and become a fly on the protagonist's frontal lobe where a stream of consciousness analysis of James Taylor's
(Going to) Carolina In My Mind can go a long way beyond the literal. One
caveat; the lyrics set forth here are not as published, but as heard and remembered upon awakening to a rendition performed by James Taylor on the Howard Stern radio program when Howard was still terrestrial.
Let's start by looking at the lyric
"I'm dying, ain't I? Going to Carolina in my mind." This song describes
a spiritual journey of going home evocative of
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. The title and most repeated phrase,
Going to Carolina in my mind, reinforces that the journey is all
in his mind. A metaphor for Eternity.
"With a holy (g)host of others right beside me" who may be the Father and Son completing the Holy Trinity.
"Still I'm on the dark side of the moon ..." The perpetually dark side of the lifeless satellite orbiting Earth leaves nowhere to go but toward the light. The
Apollo 8 Mission of 1968 was, in fact, the first manned flight to achieve lunar injection into the Moon's orbit. It went into forced radio silence as it traced it's figure-eight orbital turn around the dark side of the moon
and then there was light followed by
the Astronaut's reading of Genesis three days later on Christmas Eveas they emerged into the light of
a December 1968 Earthrise. The end of a tumultuous time and a good metaphor for rebirth.
"And it seems like it goes on this way forever ... " to the Eternal.
"You must forgive me, if I'm up and gone to Carolina in my mind." A state of
Forgiveness at the final moment is important to peaceful repose.
"Ain't it just like a friend of mind to hit me from behind?" sounds like the victim providing a police report. A death certificate might read "blunt force trauma".
If we walk ourselves back now to the beginning of the song, the lyric presents Karen and
a silver sun. In fact, Karen
is a silver sun. Could silver sun be the white light spoken of by those who have faced near-death experiences? Could
Karen be an alliteration of
Carolina? If so she would represent the home ground of final repose.
You best walk her away and watch it shine. Watch her watch the morning come. This curious lyric could describe an out-of-body experience in which the body is reluctantly "giving up the ghost" and separating the soul from the mortal coil. Karen, the literal person, is left behind to watch the morning come, while the spirit freed from mortality, may come to terms with the fate of all living things and now has the perspective to
"watch her watch the mourning come." The lines A silver tear appearing now I'm crying, ain't I? ... and The signs that might be omens say I'm going, going, gone to Carolina in my mind reflect self-realization of mortality, a human characteristic that fits the moment of ultimate convergence.
And hey babe the sky's on fire I'm dying, ain't I? Going to Carolina in my mind.
Here, we have come full circle, and we know the answer to the question "Will the Circle be Unbroken, by and by Lord, by and by?" But that song's discussion of a better home awaiting in the sky is the subject of another song interpretation ...
...
