Line #44 YMMV/DollyParton


1	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Happens to pretty much everyone in ''Jolene'' a lot, especially in [[AnswerSong Answer Songs]]
2	** Is Jolene really a hearthless seductress stealing husband from another woman without remorse? Music/KirstyMaccoll's ''Caroline'' potrays her affair as a MomentOfWeakness [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone she quickly comes to regret]]. Both Cam's ''Diane'' and David Rotheray and Julie Murphy's ''Jolene's Song'' questions whenever she's even aware the man she is dating is married. [[Music/{{Sugarland}} Jennifer Nettles's]] ''That Girl'' has Jolene warn Parton's character her husband is unfaithful after having rejected his advances. WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows, while reviewing Beyonce's cover, went step further and suggested Jolene is probably very confused and disturbed by learning she is object of some guy's creepy obsession, from his wife begging her to not steal him away, while she may not even known either of them.
3	** Both Music/{{Beyonce}}'s cover and Ewert and the Two Dragons ''Jolene'' question whenever the husband is actually going to leave his wife for Jolene, with the former being basically a sequel where Parton's character calms down and realizes she has nothing to worry about, and the latter having husband himself reject Jolene's advances.
4	** As described under HoYay and FanPreferredCouple below, Parton's character sounds at times as if ''she's'' in love with Jolene herself.
5	* ArchivePanic: Released her first single in 1959, her first album in 1967, and is still going. All told she's recorded over 50 albums. And there are literally hundreds of career compilations to choose from as well. Parton has estimated that she's written ''nearly 5,000 songs'' in her lifetime, with "only" 956 being recorded (as of 2022 at least).
6	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: "Coat of Many Colors" from ''Music/CoatOfManyColors'' is often considered one of the most sincere, heartfelt country songs of all time. This also explains why it was added to the UsefulNotes/NationalRecordingRegistry.
7	* CoveredUp:
8	** Even though Parton released it ''three times'', many people still believe that "I Will Always Love You" is a Music/WhitneyHouston song. Among them, Dolly herself. She will happily admit if she's "lost" a song, and she says that while she might have written it (and had a hit with it herself), it's now Whitney's song.
9	** "Old Flames Can't Hold a Candle to You" [[note]]Co-written by Pebe Sebert, mother of {{Music/Kesha}}[[/note]] was first released by Joe Sun.
10	** And a few country fans think she wrote "[[Music/CollectiveSoul Shine]]"...
11	** "Two Doors Down" is an unusual case. It was originally a cut on the ''Here You Come Again'' album, then a cover version by fellow RCA Records artist Zella Lehr became a Top 10 hit on the country charts. Recognizing that the song had hit potential but not wanting to undercut Lehr's success, Parton re-recorded the song and aimed it at the pop market, where it became a Top 20 hit. But Parton's re-recorded pop version still got a huge amount of country radio airplay and Lehr's version was quickly forgotten.
12	** "To Daddy," a TearJerker song about a woman who leaves her emotionally cold and neglectful husband, was written and originally recorded by Parton in 1976. Emmylou Harris recorded her own version in 1977 – with Parton and Linda Ronstadt on backing vocals – and made it a top-5 country smash in early 1978.
13	** "Here You Come Again" was written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil for Brenda Lee, who turned it down. B.J. Thomas was the first one to record it.
14	** She wrote and recorded "Kentucky Gambler" for her ''Bargain Store'' album in 1975. A year later Music/MerleHaggard topped the country charts with it.
15	** "Starting Over Again" was written by Music/DonnaSummer and her husband Bruce Sudano, about the divorce of Sudano's parents. Parton saw Summer perform it on TV, before Summer had a chance to record it, and asked permission to do the song herself in 1980. Summer still sang the song in live shows, but never recorded it, feeling she couldn't top Parton's version. Then in 1995 Music/RebaMcEntire did her own version that Covered Up the song from Parton for younger listeners.
16	** "Single Women" was also a song that she recorded after seeing it performed on TV, in this case on the October 10, 1981 episode of ''Series/SaturdayNightLive''. The song was written by legendary ''SNL'' writer and featured player Michael O'Donoghue and performed on the show by cast member Creator/ChristineEbersole.
17	* FanPreferredCouple: "Jolene" is about a married woman being worried that her husband will leave her for Jolene. However, there exists a large group of fans who want her to leave her husband for Jolene (with a surprising number of fanfics dedicated to the pairing), mainly because the whole song has the narrator describing how beautiful Jolene is, which leads fans to interpret her as having a crush on Jolene.
18	* [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments Heartwarming Moments]]: When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced her as a nominee for the 2022 Hall of Fame ballot in February 2022, Parton said that she hadn't earned the right because she had never recorded a rock song, along with saying she didn't think of herself as a rock artist. This was the Hall's response:
19	--> "From its inception, rock and roll has had deep roots in rhythm & blues and country music. It is not defined by any one genre, rather a sound that moves youth culture. [[Main/YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre Dolly Parton's music impacted a generation of young fans and influenced countless artists that followed.]]
20	* HilariousInHindsight: In 2021, Music/RebaMcEntire re-recorded her hit [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZIIEkhtEzk&ab_channel=RebaMcEntireVEVO "Does He Love You"]] with Dolly Parton providing the DistantDuet vocals. The song is about a LoveTriangle between a married woman and his mistress. At least one comment pointed out that in "Jolene," Parton begs a red-headed woman not to take her man; in this version of "Does He Love You," that red-headed woman (Reba) begs Parton not to take her man. The idea that this cover was now a sequel song to "Jolene" seemed to tickle the fancy of many fans.
21	* HoYay: The entirety of the song "Jolene" is supposedly about a woman who doesn't want Jolene to seduce her boyfriend. But the entire song is about how pretty, beautiful and amazing Jolene is, making it rather easy to interpret it as the singer actually having a crush on Jolene.
22	-->Your beauty is beyond compare\
23	With flaming locks of auburn hair\
24	With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green\
25	Your smile is like a breath of spring\
26	Your voice is soft like summer rain\
27	And I cannot compete with you, Jolene
28	* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: A big part of her success comes from looking people expecting her to be a DumbBlonde only to realize she's actually highly intelligent and a very talented singer and actor.
29	* InTheStyleOf: Several of her [[CoveredUp covers]] shift the genre of oldies, punk, or alternative songs to country/folk; her album ''Treasures'' was almost entirely this. Notable entries:
30	** Music/CollectiveSoul's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e-Ip9RagkU&ab_channel=DollyParton "Shine"]] as a bluegrass song with band Nickel Creek. It earned her a Grammy in 2001 and was notable on [=YouTube=] for being just as believable as a folk song as a 90's alt-rock song. Her version leans into the religious symbolism in the lyrics and would sound at home on ChristianRock radio; Music/CollectiveSoul, however, has always denied the song has any over religious connotations.
31	** Music/LedZeppelin's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhTvxVxXJLQ&ab_channel=DollyParton "Stairway to Heaven"]] as a somehow SofterAndSlowerCover of the original.
32	** A PerspectiveFlip of Fine Young Cannibal's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pShm7GiN2JY&ab_channel=DollyPartonsVariety "She Drives Me Crazy"]] that would not have been out-of-place in her own 80's discography.
33	** Smokey Robinson's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JXWeuvcETk&ab_channel=DollyParton-Topic "Tracks of My Tears"]].
34	** Music/KatrinaAndTheWaves [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euCRkvCbJDg&ab_channel=DollyParton-Topic "Walking on Sunshine"]]. Probably the least pronounced genre change, but it's definitely twangier than the original.
35	* MemeticBadass:
36	** Jolene has become a symbol to some as "one bad bitch" because another woman is literally begging her not to steal her man (especially one that is a very gorgeous bubbly buxom blonde herself, leading to the question "If Dolly was that gorgeous in her youth, what the hell did Jolene look like!?") Dolly Parton herself found this funny [[https://imgur.com/gallery/MR7RrHD on Twitter]].
37	** Taken one step further by [[https://imgur.com/gallery/4nG1hqc Tumblr]] that turns Jolene into an EldritchAbomination.
38	** Then there was her funding of the Moderna vaccine, leading to the claim that Dolly Parton ''saved the world''.
39	** In addition, she was the co-founder of the production company Sandollar Entertainment with her former manager Sandy Gallin back in 1986, and Sandollar was one of the executive producers of none other than ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer.'' Meaning Dolly helped create This Very Wiki itself.
40	* SignatureSong: While "9 to 5" (her biggest hit on the pop charts) held this position for a long time, it's been overtaken by "Jolene" (which had already long been her SignatureSong among country audiences), thanks to [[https://i.imgur.com/9Jbcqkf.jpg some heavy]] MemeticMutation in the last decade or so, and getting high profile CoverVersion treatment from Music/MileyCyrus and Music/{{Beyonce}} (on ''Music/CowboyCarter'').
41	* SuspiciouslySimilarSong:
42	** The first few bars of the guitar intro of "We Used To" are identical to the opening of [[Music/LedZeppelin "Stairway To Heaven"]]. She later did a full CoverVersion of "Stairway".
43	** "Baby I'm Burnin' " is a couple-times-removed musical cousin of Music/ElvisPresley's "Burning Love".
44	* TearJerker:
45	** "Me and Little Andy" concerns a girl (Sandy) and her dog (Andy) showing up at the singer's house and Sandy begging for food and a bed because her mother abandoned the pair and [[AlcoholicParent her father ran off and got drunk]]. And if that's not sad enough, Sandy and Andy both ''[[DeathOfAChild die]]'', from either malnutrition or hypothermia, at the end.
46	** "I Will Forever Hate Roses" is a bitter BreakUpSong about how the singer used to love roses when her boyfriend sent them to her, but now will always hate them due to the association.
47	** "Down From Dover" ends with a baby being born but being "too still" and not crying, implying that she's [[TragicStillbirth stillborn]] or at the very least, very weak and unlikely to survive.
48	** "Starting Over Again" is the poignant account of a couple getting divorced after several decades of marriage and trying to cope with the process of moving on.
49	** While "Hard Candy Christmas" ''does'' involve the singer saying she'll be able to make Christmas work, she still mentions that she has to overcome "sorrow" in order to do so.
50	** Her most famous song, "I Will Always Love You", has the RealitySubtext of being the song she wrote for Porter Wagoner to allow her to go solo, and being a literal promise she made to him. Wagoner would later sue her for breach of contract, and later when he was down in the dumps, she bought his entire catalogue so that he could receive the money, and when he wanted to buy it back she gave it to him for free. It could be said that by the time he died, she really kept her promise to always love him.
51	** One song involves the singer's mother running away because she had problems that she never discussed with the father.

Context YMMV / DollyParton