“She’s a soldier”: The artist Dave Grohl called the musical Joan of Arc
Being a musician goes beyond merely playing a few songs that people like. The entire industry is positioned to chew people and spit them out, and true artists are the ones who will fight tooth and nail to make sure that nothing gets in the way of them expressing themselves exactly the way they want to. Although Dave Grohl has had his fair share of times where he was up against the ropes in the industry, he knew he always had heroes who knew how to stick to their guns.
It’s important to remember that Grohl came from the same stomping grounds as the DC punk scene, and that meant that people like Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat helped teach him the importance of staying true to his roots. And when he formed Foo Fighters out of the ashes of Nirvana, Grohl made it a point to take himself into new territory regardless of what anyone thought.
Despite getting major criticism for making music that sounded like Nirvana, Grohl was determined to push through any helping of bullshit that came his way. He was going to make the music he wanted to make, and even though one of the greatest artists of his generation was lost only a few months before the record was put to tape, Grohl saw his next project as a way for him to get over the pain of Cobain’s passing.
As he started to look at the big picture, Grohl found out that it wasn’t nearly as common for people to make the kind of creative leap that he did. While there had been artists like Tom Petty who had gone to war with their record company in the rock sphere, artists like Dolly Parton had to deal with her own set of problems when she had to fight for control over her songs in Nashville.
Because for as much as industry types seem cutthroat, Parton was at a disadvantage coming to Nashville. The entire place was incredibly insular, and when she eventually did get to write her own songs, she wasn’t going to roll over and make sure someone made a cheap buck off of her, even turning down Elvis Presley’s offer to sing ‘I Will Always Love You’ because that would have meant her losing a piece of the song’s publishing.
Parton’s story has practically become a part of American folklore at this point, but Grohl said understanding her during the documentary Sonic Highways gave him a whole new respect for her, saying, “[They] don’t tell you about writing ‘I Will Always Love You’ and then having to say ‘no’ to Elvis when he asks to record it because he wanted to take half the royalties off her. That proves how strong and important an artist she’s always been. Dolly’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She’s Joan of Arc. She’s a survivor. She’s like a soldier but with this incredibly beautiful, warm, wonderful exterior.”
And for as different as the two genres seem to be at times, there’s a certain punk rock ethic to what Parton had done. Turning down that kind of deal would have been a death sentence for any other artist, but Parton knew that it was better for her to stick to her guns than try to compromise some of her greatest works.
So while many of Parton’s songs might not fit into the rock and roll format, Grohl knew how important it was to look at the performer as a person first and a musician second. The songs might help tell the story, but once everyone knows the context around it, it can make even the most heartfelt songs sound badass.
