caroline and Caroline Polachek’s “Tell me I never knew that” is a real stunner
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Two Carolines make a great song.
Henry Redcliffe
caroline is an eight-piece band from London whose 2022 debut self-titled album of lovely experimental post-folk music made The FADER’s list of best songs from that year. They’re now prepping the release of its follow-up record, caroline 2, out May 30 via Rough Trade, and have teamed up with another brilliant Caroline for its latest single: “Tell me I never knew that,” out today, is a gorgeous collab with Caroline Polachek.
In the same way two negatives combine to make something positive in math, two Carolines multiple for something exponentially more beautiful on “Tell me I never knew that.” The band’s finger-plucked guitar and string work create a serene soundscape for Polachek’s vocals to weave through and layer atop like a soft breeze. caroline (the band) join in with their own harmonies, singing fragments of thoughts, “I don’t wanna be anyone / I don’t wanna be somebody else.” It all coheres into something very moving and peacefully cinematic.
In a press release, caroline (the band) writes of the song, “We used to call this one ‘Backstreet boys’ because the opening top line felt like a Backstreet Boys song. The main riff was written by Casper on acoustic guitar and stuck out as a really catchy, bouncy, hypnotic thing. We wrote the opening top line together and straight away we thought ‘this sounds like a melody that Caroline Polachek might sing’ in its hooky-ness. We sort of joked that we’d ask her to sing it but didn’t think it’d actually be on the cards, until about a year later when we sent her the half-finished song and she was up for it!
“Caroline was amazing. She wrote a load of extra parts that gave the whole thing such a lift, and then spent a few hours tracking a load of more improvised parts. We were still recording at about 1.30am when we decided to call it, but there was no indication that Caroline was the slightest bit tired or that she had lost any momentum in her ability to sing, even though she’d been singing for about 6 hours. It was an inspiring thing to witness! We did a little bit more reordering together with Caroline a few weeks after the session and then the song was finally there.”
Hear the song below, and look out for caroline 2, out May 30.
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