Country-pop icon Taylor Swift has released her new single 'Carolina', which will feature as part of the Where The Crawdads Sing soundtrack.

In true T-Swift fashion, the 'All Too Well' singer posted the pre-save link on her Instagram story yesterday (June 23) revealing the song would drop last night at midnight. The new release is in keeping with Swift's more mature releases in recent times. The melody nurses a haunting country twang, with delicately placed strings and strums.

Where The Crawdads Sing is set to hit Irish screens on July 22, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones of Normal People fame.

Speaking about the meaning behind her new release on her Instagram, the Pennsylvania native said: "About a year and half ago I wrote a song about an incredible story, the story of a girl who always lived on the outside, looking in. Figuratively and literally.

"The juxtaposition of her loneliness and independence," she added. "Her longing and her stillness. Her curiosity and fear, all tangled up. Her persisting gentleness… and the world’s betrayal of it. I wrote this one alone in the middle of the night and then Aaron Dessner and I meticulously worked on a sound that we felt would be authentic to the moment in time when this story takes place. I made a wish that one day you would hear it."

 

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When the trailer for WTCS released in March, Swift explained how her song 'Carolina' came to be on the films soundtrack. "Where The Crawdads Sing is a book I got absolutely lost in when I read it years ago," the singer said.

"As soon as I heard there was a film in the works starring the incredible Daisy Edgar Jones and produced by the brilliant Reese Witherspoon, I knew I wanted to be a part of it from the musical side. I wrote the song 'Carolina' alone and asked my friend Aaron Dessner to produce it. I wanted to create something haunting and ethereal to match this mesmerising story."

Taylor worked with producer Aaron Dessner on her albums Folklore and Evermore previously

Swifites, who are well used to picking out easter eggs from Taylor, knew the track was releasing soon when the WTCS Instagram account posted a series of capitalised letters, spelling out "Carolina This Thursday."

Based on the novel by Delia Owens, Where The Crawdads Sing follows Kya as she learns to fend for herself after being abandoned by her family in the North Carolina marsh. The young woman's story becomes more and more complicated when she becomes romantically and sexually involved with two men from town. The story reaches a climax when one of these men is found dead and Kya is accused of his murder.

'Carolina' is out on all streaming platforms now, listen below.