“16 Carriages” Has Beyoncé Mourning Childhood Innocence
"16 Carriages" seems to be an unvarnished depiction of Beyoncé’s early life. One lyric indicates that the song was written years in the past.
By Dan ClarendonFeb. Thirteen 2024, Published 12:02 p.m. ET
(*16*)Source: Getty ImagesThe Renaissance is far from over. Beyoncé effectively broke the internet on Super Bowl Sunday, announcing the upcoming album “Renaissance Act II,” a country-tinged follow-up to 2022’s “Renaissance.” And pundits are already parsing the lyrics of the two singles she launched on Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024. So let’s dive into one of them: What does “16 Carriages” mean?
It’s a good question — and fanatics appear eager to read and decipher the lyrics. The “16 Carriages” page on Genius has already racked up around 160,000 perspectives. Here’s what we know about this despair song.
“16 Carriages” is about early popularity, life on the road, and growing up too fast.
The unmarried “16 Carriages” — produced through Beyoncé, Ink, and Dave Hamelin, and written through that trio plus Raphael Saadiq — turns out to describe the loneliness of life at the road and popularity at a tender age, as Genius explains.
“Sixteen carriages drivin’ away / While I watch them experience with my goals away / To the summer time sundown on a holy night time / On a protracted back highway, all the tears I battle,” Beyoncé sings in the first chorus.
(*16*)Source: Getty ImagesThose “16 carriages” is usually a fleet of concert-tour vans, as one fan points out. Also, it is probably not a coincidence that Queen Bey was once 16 when Destiny’s Child signed with Columbia Records and released the only “No, No, No,” as Billboard notes.
Beyoncé sings about leaving home at a young age and “workin’ all day.”
In the first verse, Bey sings a few rigorous youth: “At fifteen, the innocence used to be long gone off target / Had to leave my house at an early age / I saw Mama prayin’, I noticed Daddy grind / All my tender problems, had to depart behind.”
And the first pre-chorus may well be a recollection of Beyoncé’s revel in within the early days of Destiny’s Child it could be a reflection of her present-day lifestyles: “It’s been umpteen summers, and I’m no longer in my bed / On the back of the bus and a bunk with the band / Goin’ so exhausting, gotta choose myself / Undеrpaid and crushed / I may prepare dinner, clеan, however nonetheless received’t fold / Still workin’ on my lifestyles, you already know / Only God knows, simplest God knows / Only God is aware of.”
Then Beyoncé returns to the chorus — subbing in “fears” for “desires” — ahead of launching into a second verse that reads like a testomony to her tenacity: “Sixteen bucks, workin’ all day / Ain’t got time to waste, I got artwork to make / I got love to create on this holy night time / They gained’t dim my mild, all these years I fight.”
One lyric in particular suggests Beyoncé wrote this song in 2019 or 2020.
The 2nd pre-chorus is a variation of the primary, and the point out of “thirty-eight summers” has fanatics thinking Beyoncé wrote this song when she was once 38, both in 2019 or 2020: “Sixteen dollars, workin’ all day / Ain’t got time to waste, I were given artwork to make / I were given love to create on this holy night / They received’t dim my mild, these kind of years I battle.”
The bridge hints at discord between folks Tina and Matthew Knowles: “At fifteen, the innocence was gone off course / Had to care for house at an early age / I saw Mama cryin’, I noticed Daddy lyin’ / Had to sacrifice and go away my fears behind / The legacy, if it’s the last thing I do / You’ll be mindful me ’reason we got somethin’ to end up / In your reminiscence, on a highway to truth / Still see your faces when you close your eyes.”
All informed, “16 Carriages” seems like Beyoncé at her maximum raw and wistful.
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