“A humble song”: how ‘Jolene’ revolutionised music’s view of femininity
Dolly Parton is many things – a country legend and a philanthropic changemaker, for starters, but also without doubt a feminist icon. Womanhood is, in a lot of respects, central to Parton’s power, expressed countless times throughout the themes of her music and in the fight for advocacy. But amid it all, there is one song that blazed the way in turning the music industry’s head to see that the future was female.
It almost goes without saying that this was, of course, ‘Jolene’, Parton’s 1973 monster hit that represented a changing of the tides not just in the trajectory of her own career, but in shaking up the view of women in the music industry at large. Naturally, the cause for gender equality wasn’t what is now back over half a century ago, but Parton was determined to take this in her stride as she prepared to bare down her soul.
In a 2023 interview, the country queen recalled the impact of the song by saying: “With ‘Jolene’, I remember hearing so many people say, ‘That’s such a humble song. It’s a true song.’ For a woman to say: ‘I can’t compete with you, I’m not as beautiful as you, I’m never going to be that beautiful, your beauty is beyond compare, but I don’t have all that going for me?’ It was unusual at the time in songwriting. So many women through the years related to that song, and they’ve told me so.”
She continued by explaining that at the heart of ‘Jolene’ was: “the idea of being blinded by beauty. Then to have someone love a man so much that she would, rather than giving him up and being mad about him having an affair, but loving him enough to understand how he would fall in love with someone else because they’re that beautiful.”
Especially in searingly truthful lines like, “And I can easily understand/ How you could easily take my man/ But you don’t know what he means to me,” Parton noted: “People thought it was a very honest, open, and humble kind of song about the subject. Nobody had been writing about affairs from that side of it — to go to the person who was trying to steal your man.”
That said, it was hardly surprising that Parton would be the first one to tread on unfettered ground, as in many respects, that was just what she’d been doing her entire life. After all, she is the joint first female artist to have the most number ones in the country charts, has 49 studio albums, and a 60-year career under her belt – so changing the world was really all in a day’s work.
Quite simply, there is no one and will never be anyone else like Dolly Parton to master the boards of the music industry in the way she has. This is what sets her apart- it is far more than just her artistry – there’s a vision for the future without ever once getting too big for her boots, an unmatched honesty, and a championing spirit that cannot be diminished. That’s exactly why she is the ‘Queen of Country’.
