Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’: The track of vulnerability that also haunts us

Dolly Parton, the nation famous person, died on August 25 in Nashville after a quick battle with most cancers. Though Parton had belted out many hits, ‘Jolene’ nonetheless stays etched within the reminiscence of music lovers. There’s something unsettling about ‘Jolene’, though it is likely one of the most stunning and enduring songs Dolly Parton ever wrote.

The track, in contrast to ‘I Will Survive’ by Gloria Gaynor, confirmed that feminine pop singers have been nonetheless battling with their id as unbiased girls. Like ‘I Will Survive’, the lady was pleased to indicate the door to an ungrateful man; the lady in ‘Jolene’ was actually begging ‘the opposite girl’ to go away her man whereas admitting that she will not be as stunning as her.

Everyone knows the story behind the track. Parton had defined that ‘Jolene’, launched in 1973, was impressed by a red-haired financial institution teller whom she noticed flirting along with her husband, Carl Dean. Parton, because the track goes, discovered the lady extra stunning in each sense of the phrase. Within the track, Parton describes each function of the lady:

“Your magnificence is past examine

With flaming locks of auburn hair

With ivory pores and skin and eyes of emerald inexperienced

Your smile is sort of a breath of spring

Your pores and skin is delicate like summer time rain…”

And she or he actually fell at her toes to go away her man. It’s fascinating to know that she and Carl remained married for practically 60 years, from 1966 till his dying in March 2025.

Was she undecided of Carl’s love or like another girl, did she really feel insecure and weak seeing a girl youthful and extra stunning than her? The track depicts the vulnerability of a girl attempting to maintain her husband. She will not be robust sufficient to problem the lady or inform her husband that if he falls for her, she is going to slam the door on him.

Many feminine writers noticed the track as ‘anti-feminist’ and disliked the thought of begging one other girl to not steal her man. However the reply got here from Beyoncé when she turned the lyrics of ‘Jolene’ the other way up. Beyoncé, as an alternative of begging or pleading, warned the lady by saying:

“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I’m warnin’ you, don’t come for my man (Jolene)

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

Don’t take the prospect since you assume you possibly can…”

Parton publicly praised Beyoncé’s daring, confrontational reimagining of ‘Jolene’ on the 2024 album ‘Cowboy Carter’, saying “Beyoncé is giving that lady some hassle and he or she deserves it.”

In sharp distinction to Beyoncé’s model, Parton reveals herself powerless in entrance of the opposite girl. As an alternative of asking her husband to stay away from that girl, she is pleading along with her to indicate restraint. On the opposite aspect, Beyoncé is so assured that she calls herself queen and is on the identical time certain of her husband’s love when she says:

“I do know my man higher than he is aware of himself (Yeah, what?)

I can simply perceive

Why you’re drawn to my man?

However you don’t need this smoke, so shoot your shot with another person (You heard me)…”

The irony turns into even sharper once we bear in mind who Dolly Parton herself was. She was hardly a girl with out company. She grew to become one of the vital profitable feminine songwriters and performers in a male-dominated Nashville music trade. But in ‘Jolene’, she enters the thoughts of a girl who feels powerless exactly as a result of one other girl is extra stunning.

A few years later, Elizabeth Gilbert in her e-book ‘All of the Technique to the River: Love, Loss and Liberation’ questioned this excessive codependency as depicted in ‘Jolene’. Gilbert argues {that a} girl’s happiness ought to by no means be completely on the mercy of another person’s actions as within the track.

In hindsight, we are able to analyse ‘Jolene’ threadbare, however we have no idea the psychological make-up of Parton on the time she wrote it. Was she expressing her personal insecurity and vulnerability or was she depicting the truth of a piece of ladies who have been nonetheless conditioned to be submissive in relationships?