Jolene

Jolene

Dolly Parton (1973)

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Writer: Dolly Parton

Producer: Bob Ferguson

Label: RCA

Album: Jolene

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“For a song that is all about low self-esteem and vulnerability, “Jolene” is a robust little number. With a simple chorus of rising chords, Dolly Parton’s breakout pop-country hit has been covered by more than thirty artists in an array of genres. There’s whimsical folk from Mindy Smith (Parton’s favourite), Gothic self-hate from Sisters of Mercy, and plangent despair from The White Stripes. Strawberry Switchblade gave it some Eighties synth, while Olivia Newton-John stripped out all the pathos but really got the disco floor bouncing.

The content of the lyrics isn’t open to quite so much reinterpretation. Parton, a successful century singer-songwriter but one without a smash hit, was moved to write it after her husband began receiving admiring glances from a woman who worked in a local bank and, as Parton explained with typically brassy self-deprecation, “had all that stuff that some little short, sawed-off honky like me don’t have.” The song takes the from of the narrator pleading woman-to-woman with beautiful predator Jolene: “Please don’t take my man.” “My happiness depends on you, and whatever you decide to do,” concludes a desperate but determined Parton. It’s hardly a feminist anthem — hence Kirsty MacColl’s caustic response, “Caroline,” in 1995 — but at no point does it ever sound like the husband himself will have any say in what is going to happen.” (PW)

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