The Dolly Parton song that radio stations refused to play: “It’s all different!”
When we talk about censorship in music, it’s easy to immediately think of cultural panic, where music was slated as some kind of satanic influence over generational youth. But what about Dolly Parton?
In a strange sort of full-circle moment (or perhaps the issue never went away to begin with), Parton always encountered the same biases many female musicians still face today, especially when it comes to the unrelenting disparity between aesthetic and appearance and the ingenuity of their songwriting and storytelling. For instance, most people in the early years, and still to an extent, dismiss Parton because of how she looks without considering the fact that she might be one of history’s best writers.
But if we’re talking strictly censorship, Parton hasn’t necessarily been central to any controversial scandal akin to ones like the satanic panic, or on the receiving end of a smear campaign to get her blacklisted in the same way as Prince or Black Sabbath. But she has endured a bit of a rebellious streak when it comes to facing up to those who just don’t get her as an artist because all they see is the sheen of a doll-like country girl without much to say about the things that actually matter.
Which, as we know, is absolute rubbish. Because most of Parton’s discography, beyond even the hits, is all about the things that made her who she is, from her humble, impoverished beginnings to all the love and loss she suffered along the way. But she didn’t just pour her heart into music in a simplistic way, like many of her country predecessors did; she did so with a poetic edge, turning tales of woe (and joy) into nuanced stories with characters we all could resonate with.
Often, this meant adhering to a level of honesty not everyone could get on board with, especially radio stations. For instance, when Parton released ‘Down from Dover’, the radio refused to play it because of its lyrics. Written about an unmarried pregnant teenager who left home but wishes the father would return to her, it wasn’t exactly the easiest song to hear among 1970s listeners. But these hidden gems also proved how hard Parton worked to be authentic even in an age with such heady restrictions.
That said, something about people randomly discovering songs like this gives Parton some kind of rush – like you only really come across it if you go looking. “I like songs that I’ve recorded in albums that a lot of people have never heard,” she said on The Late Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Touching upon ‘Down from Dover’ in particular, she added, “At the time, when I put it out on the record, they wouldn’t play it on the radio. Lord, now you can have a baby right on television — it’s all different!”
Although the lyrics don’t feel especially alarming when reflecting on them now, at the time they seemed far too suggestive, with Parton detailing openly the narrator’s perils of having to leave home after telling her parents of the news: “I know this dress I’m wearing doesn’t hide the secret / I have tried concealing / When he left he promised me that he’d be back / By the time it was revealing.”
However, all of this again revealed Parton’s penchant for intricate storytelling, even if the nature of the subject threw people off.
And given the fact that she grew up making up stories because her family were too poor to go to the movies or do anything else just for fun, those moments she gets to truly let her narrative skills shine have also incidentally become some of her career highlights, with songs she’ll forever be proud of just because they came from deep within.
As she put it, “I really love some of my songs like that that tell stories. Most of my songs that I like the best are songs that nobody’s ever heard.”
