Trivia / Caroline Polachek

• Creator Recovery: The largely uplifting, romantic Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, was ironically first brainstormed as a result of the turbulent emotions she experienced following the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Following the wildly conflicting emotions from contracting the virus herself to losing her father, she was spurned into what she dubbed a musical and psychological state of "spiraling", acting on a stream-of-consciousness-style approach to her songwriting and lyrics that ended up emphasizing themes of optimism and escapism amidst bittersweet turmoil (in some cases, she described herself as "spiraling upward" or even "lateral spiraling"). The final album ends up being very "maximist" and adventurous in mixing genres and influences, and with poetic, abstract lyrics that lean towards being romantic, witty, and upbeat.
• In Memoriam: Caroline dedicated the song "I Believe" — a song about immortality through remembrance — to her late friend Sophie Xeon, who passed away from an accidental fall in 2021. The Lyrical Cold Open "Look over the edge, but not too far" is almost certainly a tragic nod to the incident that claimed her life.
• Throw It In!: The guitar solo around the third chorus of "Welcome to My Island" was done by Caroline herself as a joke. While recording with co-writer Dan Nigro, she decided there needed to be a guitar solo, but after humming her intended melody to Dan, he instead passed her the electric guitar — an instrument she didn't know how to play — and insisted "whatever, just figure it out."

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