Over the course of five albums, Caroline Rose’s style has “evolved” from the twangy, acoustic sounds of her debut album to something much more electric and rowdy. Rose’s lyrics have always been witty, sarcastic and acerbic. The only thing that’s really changed, as a guitar teacher of mine once put it, is “the sound of the amp.”
Later this month, we’re getting a new album from Rose, and the title is a mouthful, especially if you’re a radio announcer: Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall. “Gentling a horse” refers to the process of training a horse to trust its handler, and Walt Whitman Mall is a shopping destination now known as Walt Whitman Shops. I have no idea how these two things are related, but it may have something to do with the way Rose describes her new single, “Calm,” and the amount of thoughts she has in her head at once.
"I oftentimes lean on sarcasm and humor to get a point across when it’s something that’s actually really hard for me to deal with,” said Rose, in a press release. “One of the recurring themes in my life is feeling like I have about 20,000 different voices in my head all saying different things and I feel remarkably ‘uncalm.’ So this was sort of a sardonic take on feeling mentally unwell.”
It’s a point that comes across right away from the first two lines: “I'm so careless, I'm so free / Nobody quite so careless as me.” Those are definitely not the words of someone who doesn’t have a care in the world. The chorus brings it home: “But what's this? / This is just the way that I feel about everything now. So calm / I am the calmest mother****** ever hit the ground now / Never look back.” And it’s all accompanied by Rose’s frantic guitar.
We’re in October now, so I’m feeling pretty comfortable calling this one of my favorite songs of the year, and I can’t wait for the new record, coming Oct. 23. In the meantime, “Calm” and three other already-released songs are available on Bandcamp and streaming services.
