Get your hairspray, tight pants, and T-top Camaro ready, because the Motor Inns are trying their hand at some hard rock! On Carolina Girl, they rework an original, acoustic-blues number into a riff-driven electric guitar workout. It’s got drums. It’s got bass. It’s got overdriven P90 pickups. It has weird lyrics about a conversation at 10,000 feet. It even has some quasi-psychedelic, fuzzy guitar courtesy of a 1966 Fender Coronado II.

If you’re looking for more information on the making of Carolina Girl, you can find it in the DIY Hard Rock Experiment post. That article covers the creative process of writing, recording, and arranging Carolina Girl. And of course, because I am a gear nut, the essay also discusses the musical equipment that helped shape the song!

Carolina Girl Lyrics:

Propeller’s spinning, plane goin’ take me home
I get my feet back on blacktop, no more will I roam
Well I’ve been to pretty places, I guess I’ve seen them all
But each one leaves me empty baby when I can’t hear you call

Not too romantic, I don’t like to gush
I don’t read romance novels with their paragraphs of mush
So I search for words to tell you, how you make me feel
And the words I find are simple, but the sentiments are real

And the world, it might turn and
All the forests, they might burn 
I might spend all the money that I earn
I might forget all the things that I have learned
But I’ll love my Carolina Girl
Love my Carolina Girl

Pilot turned and asked me, “Son, what is your hurry?”
“Ground speed’s so high that the whole wide world’s blurry”
I said “if you saw my baby, you’d go faster too”
Showed him a picture said, “she’s got a sister,” and he said “we’ll get there soon.”

And the world, it might turn and
All the forests, they might burn 
I might spend all the money that I earn
I might forget all the things that I have learned
But I’ll love my Carolina Girl
Love my Carolina Girl

Well the world, it might turn and
All the forests, they might burn 
And I might spend all the money that I have earned
I might forget all the things that I have learned
But I’ll love my Carolina Girl
Love my Carolina Girl . . . yeah

Carolina Girl Equipment Snapshot:

Guitars

• Collings I-35LC with Lollar P-90s
• 1966 Fender Coronado II

Amps and Pedals

• Hot Rod Deluxe with Bugera Attenuator
• Carr Super Bee
• Suhr Shiba Drive Mini (black)
• Wampler Plexi Drive Mini
• Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster
• Nocturne Brain Junior Barnyard
• MXR 10-Band EQ
• MXR Carbon Copy Mini

Bass

• Dean

Drums

• Yamaha FGDP-50 Finger Drum Machine

Recording Equipment

• Sure SM57 & SM58
• Focusrite 4i4 Scarlett
• Garageband (MacBook Air)

Note: If you enjoyed this track, you can listen to other original DIY songs by Pete Berris & the Motor Inns in the songs section of the website!