Who was the inspiration for the Dolly Parton song ‘Jolene’?
It remains one of the most heartbreaking songs in popular music. Under a rock-steady rhythm and an unsettling minor chord progression, Dolly Parton lays out her defeated pleas to the titular figure in her 1973 single ‘Jolene’. Parton’s lyrics – filled with naked honesty and stark admissions – are tragic because she knows she can’t compete with the title woman. Instead, all she can do is try to convince her to move on and not take her man.
‘Jolene’ became Parton’s second solo number-one single on the Billboard Country Singles chart. It was a minor pop chart hit but only peaked at number 60 on the Billboard Hot 100. Three years later, ‘Jolene’ was re-released as a single in the UK, hitting number seven on the UK Singles Chart. It remains Parton’s highest-charting solo single in the UK – her 1983 duet with Kenny Rogers, ‘Islands in the Stream’, also topped out at number seven.
“The reason I think the song ‘Jolene’ has resonated with so many people for so long is because most of us have actually had a Jolene or a Joe in our lives at one time or another,” Parton said in the 2019 Netflix anthology series Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings. “But more importantly, we’ve all felt insecure about something. We’ve all felt like we might lose someone we love to someone else because we’re not good enough, and that’s what this song’s really about.”
During her appearance at the 2014 Glastonbury Festival, Parton confirmed to the crowd that a red-headed bank teller who flirted with her husband Carl Dean was the main inspiration behind ‘Jolene’. “Now, some of you may or may not know that that song was loosely based on a little bit of truth,” Parton told the crowd. “I wrote that years ago when my husband was spending a little more time with Jolene than I thought he should be.”
“I put a stop to that. I got rid of that redhead woman in a hurry,” Parton confirmed. “I want you folks to know, though, that something good can come from anything. Had it not been for that woman I would never have written ‘Jolene’ and I wouldn’t have made all that money, so thank you, Jolene.”
But that flirtatious bank teller wasn’t the only inspiration behind ‘Jolene’. Without any nefarious intent, a young fan also wound up influencing the creation of the song’s main character. In the early 1970s, Parton was paid a visit by a young fan backstage. No older than ten years old, the young fan had a shock of red hair and striking features that immediately impacted Parton. Most importantly, she had a memorable name as well.
“She had this beautiful red hair, this beautiful skin, these beautiful green eyes, and she was looking up at me, holding [out] for an autograph,” Parton recalled to NPR in 2008. “I said, ‘Well, you’re the prettiest little thing I ever saw. So what is your name?’ And she said, ‘Jolene.’ And I said, ‘Jolene. Jolene. Jolene. Jolene. That is pretty. That sounds like a song. I’m going to write a song about that.'”
Check out ‘Jolene’ down below.
