Songfacts®:

• Arlo Parks wrote this intimate exercise in people watching after observing an argument between an "artsy couple" on London's Oxford Street. She only witnessed 30 seconds of their quarrel, but that was enough for her to come up with a story that explains why their relationship exploded out in the open. Parks tells the tale by relating it to her friend Caroline.
• Parks told Apple Music that she wrote this song and "For Violet" on the same day with "my little £8 bottle of Casillero del Diablo." Parks added that penning the song took her back to the time aged 7 or 8 when she first started writing "these very observant and very character-based short stories."
• The harmonies on the song were inspired by a video Parks found of The Beatles performing "This Boy." She explained: "The chorus feels like such an explosion - such a release - and harmonies can accentuate that."
• Parks' record company released "Caroline" as the fifth single from her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams. All the tracks were co-written by Los Angeles-based songwriter Gianluca Buccellati, who primarily produced its music.
• Brock Neal Roberts directed the video, which shows Parks observing a couple trying in vain to make each other happy. Parks said: "We both really love the idea of creating these really human, visual portraits and we were inspired by photographers such as Nan Golding, Wolfgang Tilman and Ren Hang."
• Caroline is a name that songwriters frequently like to use in a song – most famously the "Sweet Caroline" Neil Diamond sang of. He actually wrote that number about his second wife, Marcia, but needed a three-syllable name to fit the melody. The name Caroline fit the tune perfectly, so that's what he used.
  
  Other artists that titled a song after a girl named Caroline include The Beach Boys, Status Quo, Brandi Carlile, Kaiser Chiefs, Kellie Pickler and Steve Martin.