Spearheaded by “Jolene”, her 1974 hit that has been covered more than 90 times, Dolly Parton’s extraordinary back catalogue has “long taken on a life of its own outside country music”, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian.
Right up until her death this week, Parton “seemed as present in pop music in the mid-2020s as she had been in the late 70s”, having been a notable influence on Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Sabrina Carpenter in particular.
“A world without Dolly doesn’t feel possible, real, or right,” said Taylor Swift on social media following Parton’s death yesterday. She will leave an “everlasting” legacy for younger artists and fans. Beyoncé, who recorded a reimagined version of “Jolene” in 2024, said Parton was the “barometer” and “north star” of the industry.
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‘Cocktail of mixed emotions’
“The country music icon amassed countless hits and accolades,” said USA Today, “but few songs have stood the test of time quite like her beloved tune ‘Jolene’”. The song first appeared on Parton’s 13th studio album, of the same name, released in October 1973, and reached No. 1 on the US chart in February 1974. It was inspired when a “red-haired bank clerk flirted” with her late husband, Carl Thomas Dean.
The song has not only become “one of the most renowned songs in country music”, but has also “transcended genre lines”. In 2004, it was No. 217 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” and No. 63 on the revised list in 2021. “Jolene” has become a “constant presence throughout pop culture, with multiple generations discovering, covering and falling in love with the tune”.
A large part of the song’s appeal is how “open-ended” and relatable it is, said Annie Zaleski on The Boot. We may know how upset the “inadequate” protagonist is, but “we're not quite sure how her story ends”. Some of the final lyrics – “I had to have this talk with you / My happiness depends on you” – can be interpreted as “breezy, a stern warning shot or downright passive-aggressive”. In just three minutes, Parton digs into a “cocktail of mixed emotions – jealousy, anger, sadness, fright – that to this day captures the complicated dimensions of the human condition”.
Given that ambiguity, what’s curious is how different artists have interpreted the core messages of “Jolene” in recent years, said David Honigmann in the Financial Times. At its heart, the song “walks the line between dignity and desperation”. Tellingly, this has usually led male artists to replay Parton’s “quiet dignity as hysteria”, while women tend to be “more sympathetic”.
In 2018, rapper Stormzy “embarked on a lengthy exegesis” of the song on social media, saying that he wished Parton had “more self-love and confidence or the strength to just leave my man cah it ain’t really Jolene’s fault”. David Rotheray of The Beautiful South wrote in a 2013 blog that it “always sounded to me like a delusional ‘low self-esteem’ song”.
Yet women artists, such as Laura Marling and Strawberry Switchblade, have tended to refrain from judgement, while Parton’s god-daughter Miley Cyrus (Parton was a close friend of her father, Billy Ray Cyrus) has recorded a “splendidly tougher, more assertive version”.
Musical ‘blueprint’ for artists
“Jolene”, as well as other major hits such as “I Will Always Love You” and “9 to 5”, shows a “skilful musician who knew how to blend the story of lyrics with the drama of music”, said creative arts academic Wendy Hargreaves on The Conversation. Her lyrics are known to tell the story, but, importantly “her music matched it”.
The chords “pound out an appropriately bleak minor key, ascending to higher chords with each dramatic call of the name ‘Jolene’”. Underneath the accompanying vocals, an “intriguing, rapid-fire, finger-picking guitar” maintains an “incessant motion that not only adds tension but draws admiration for skilful playing”.
In a technical sense, “Jolene” also “lends itself to malleability”, said Zaleski on The Boot. For Parton, the song’s simplicity is a “big plus”, with her “proud warble” up front, supported by “genial acoustic guitar augmented by occasional whispers of pedal steel and strings”.
It strikes a perfect balance, at once “galloping” enough to be “effective” as a folk song, but also “skeletal enough” for subsequent artists to use it as a “blueprint or guiding sketch” for their own vision. This is what has made the song “timeless”; “there’s nothing in the production or instrumentation to tie it to a particular era or musical movement”.
