Just playing one of my favorite tracks and got me thinking why is (was) Caroline such a popular name in songs. The three syllables meter nicely, or the ‘line’ at the end can be drawn out, or were Caroline’s such lovely girls they had to have a song written for them, very popular in the 60’s but you don’t see many about nowadays.
Caroline Goodbye - Colin Blunstone - my favourite (about Caroline Munro)
Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond is an obvious.
Caroline, No - The Beach Boys
Caroline Says II - Lou Reed
O Caroline - Matching Mole (about Caroline Coon)
Caroline - Fleetwood Mac
Caroline - Status Quo
Goodbye Caroline - Aimee Mann
I had a similar chat with some friends a few weeks ago. We are all close to, or just past retirement age, and when we were born we were given fairly common and popular forenames. Most of these names now do not register anywhere near the top of the current lists.
(I think the three syllables of Caroline work well generally.)
The attached suggests that boys names have swung back to be historically more traditional but girls names have not.
Bringing this back round to @AndyP, as a teenager in the 70’s I used to stay with my uncle in Margate and me and my brother would always go to the Radio Caroline Roadshow. By then it was a bit of a greasy biker fest so we would wear our badge covered denim jackets. I do remember the sheer euphoria of hearing OMD’s Electricity at one of these roadshows
Plus psychedelic furs “pretty in pink”.
And the very same Caroline in depeche mode “Caroline’s monkey” - has to be the same Caroline courtesy of Richard Butler - or maybe he just likes the name.
Oh, I’m not saying that they don’t make me laugh, and I loved them when I was a kid, but as an adult you can only hear those squeaky voices for a few minutes before you are ready to jump out the window to make it stop!
We all have our little weirdnesses with music.
