One Song - Dolly Parton's "Jolene"

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

In memory of Dolly Parton, we’re revisiting our episode about her seminal 1973 track “Jolene.” In the years that have followed, the song has been reinterpreted and reimagined by many artists including Olivia Newton John, Miley Cyrus, Lil Nas X, the White Stripes, and, of course, Beyonce. On this episode of One Song, LUXXURY and Diallo Riddle are joined by comedy legend Andy Richter to talk through the history and impact of this singular anthem, and the many Jolenes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, One Song Nation, this week we wanted to pay tribute to one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Miss Dolly Rebecca Parton, who passed away just this past week. To celebrate this American icon, we're bringing back our One Song episode from 2024, where we talked about Dolly's signature song, Jolene, with special guest Andy Richter. The best way we at One Song can think of to honor the self-described Backwoods Barbie is to listen to all of the beautiful layers of her music, starting with the isolated drums, bass, and guitars, and of course, the gorgeous vocals of the Smoky Mountain Songbird herself.

You may have heard this song many times before, but never quite like this. So here is one song's tribute to the Queen of Country. Ladies and gentlemen, Dolly Parton's Jolene. The chorus like a breath of spring, her vocals and iconic thing, and most of all that's a sirename Jolene. To the chorus, Dolly, Dolly, Daly, Daly's listen to one song. Dolly, darling, Doug and Julie this time on one song.

Luxury, my friend, today we are doing something different. Today we are going country. Yes, very different for us. Very different for us. Very different for me. I will often say to people, the one genre where I feel like I just don't know a whole lot is country. but today we are going country and we're going to tell you the story

of truly one song. You know, we're going to track this song all the way from its genesis which was apparently sparked by a chance encounter at a bank. How many songs were started at the bank that don't you know, you know, going straight to the bank. Right. That might happen.

That's often the result of a hit song. That's usually the result of the song. That's a good result. But we're going to talk about its genesis. We're going to talk about its recording and its release. And then we're going to examine how this song which was recorded in 1973, has continued to stay relevant and transcend genres and eras. That's right, to y'all. It has been covered by a really eclectic range of artists from Olivia Newton, John, to Miley Cyrus, Lil Nas X, even the White Stripes had to go. But most recently, the song is at the forefront of popular culture because it was covered by none other than Beyonce on her recent...

Oh, Cowboy Carter. Cowboy Carter. That's fantastic. That's right. That's right. On this episode, the story of one song and The Many Jolene's. actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Dialla Riddle. And I'm producer, songwriter, and musicologist Luxury, aka the guy who talks about interpolation on the internet.

And today, to talk about Jolene, we have a very, very special guest with us. You've seen him on TV on Late Night with Conan O'Brien at The Tonight Show and Conan and in movies like Elf, Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory. He is a comedy hero of mine. I truly mean that. Oh gosh. Long-time listeners of the show know that I was a writer on Fallon by writing people. partner and I, Bashir, you know, we were roommates before we were writing partners. And when I say

that we watched you do your thing for so long, Bashir to this day, wears a masturbating bear t-shirt to this day, like in the most inappropriate setting. So we are, I don't even, did we sell those or is at home-mey. It must be bootle. It must be bootle. It must be bootle. I don't see NBC going like, you know what we need. We know what we need in the gift. You know what Rockefeller Center needs. It needs bears and diapers masturbating. But listen, he is like us also a podcaster, and he is the host of three questions with Andy Richter. Andy Richter, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And here I should show. Uh-oh. What is this t-shirt? I have no idea.

This is a very special shirt. Wait, he's got on a Dolly Parton. Total coincidence. Shirt of bonding. No, no. It actually was a coincidence because we were emailing about like what song to do. on that episode. I was suggesting a few

I was like, what about Dolly Part? What about Jolene? And you, like, moments later, meaning you were in your car. You were sitting in my car. You could not have gone to your dress, your bureau.

Right, right, right. And you showed me. I just happened to be wearing this shirt. He was got a shirtlier. You could have a shirt. You could have a shirt. Right. Instead of a CD.

Oh, oh, you, you flatter me. Living out of his car recently. I'm sorry to hear. I am living out of my car. The shirts were all there. And I have 30 Dolly Parton shirt. I thought you were going into a hobby lot.

I saw her at the Hollywood Bowl and I got this shirt. That's a really cool shirt. It is. And it's like, you know, when I got it, I was probably five or six years ago that she played. And it's like, she doesn't really look like this anymore. But if I took a picture like this, it would be the only picture I'd ever put out of myself.

You would make sure there were no other pictures on the movie. Andy, before we started taping this episode, we were talking a little in the green room. You actually have a genuine history of love for country music, which is perfect because we'll talk about it on this show, on this episode. Both y'all and I were a little, we're not very knowledgeable about the genre, we'll be the first to admit. We adore this song and we adore the artist.

So that's good enough for the episode to be called one song. The show is called one song. But you can fill us in a little bit more and tell us about your history and love for Dolly and country music in general. Yeah, well, I grew up in the Midwest, in Illinois, but in rural Illinois, which is as much about Chicago, a town called Yorkville. Okay, cool. And it's as much about Chicago as it is about Kentucky.

You know, I mean, and as you get into Illinois, you know, Southern Illinois and Southern Indiana, it's country. And we didn't, nobody growing up, like my mom or my dad or my, you know, like in our house, we didn't listen to country music. But I had aunts and uncles. And I was telling you that when I would go down to Springfield, Illinois, go to my Uncle Raymond. to his house, it just seemed like he-haw was on the TV around the clock. With those freckles they always painted on the middle? Yeah, and the freckles and the fake corn cobs and corn stalks.

And also, too, they would listen to the grand old opery too. I would hear it, you know, and I don't know, it might even been televised. I can't remember exactly. But so I heard country music and I didn't dislike it. But it wasn't until I was an adult that I really started to appreciate country music. And by country music, I mean, beyond about 1978, no thank you. There's a few, you know, like what passes for country music now to me is just like Bon Jovi with a twang, you know, with an accent. The line is very, we're going to talk a little bit later on about genres and about like how they're defined and how like a little arbitrary and a lot of overlap there is among them.

for exactly that reason. But you're right. And it's interesting you note that because the mid-70s is when, for my understanding, country music does start to massively evolve out of the South and out of its sonic realm of sort of for the 50 years that it sounded like country music of the George Jones's and sort of Hank Williams is the opera, right? It becomes more commercialized. It starts to integrate other sounds.

Yeah. So that's interesting that that's right when you start to tune out a little bit. There was a big time where, and it was Chad Aiken's, he was an amazing, and an always a deeply respected guitar player picker, but took over, I believe it was RCA, and brought in this sound with lots of strings. Like, you know, sweet dreams. That's the word sweeten it up. Yeah, yeah.

And just tons of strings. And that Willie Nelson was actually a reaction to that, you know, was that. That was all like, too fancy. That's too commercial and too fancy and too popped up and two New York City. and they wanted to get back to, you know, dope smoking country. Itinerant kind of like bad behavior, men with bad behavior. Exactly. Well, there's a funny meme online that says something like, you know, old country music was, you know,

I got in a fight with the devil and I stole his magic dog and, you know, and wrote it down into hell. I love that. That's the Hank Williams senior. Yeah. Yeah. And then like now it's all sort of like, if you make. fun of the cops, I'll cry. It's undergone quite a change.

I have a question right off the bat. Will we consider Dolly Parton part of this more sweetened up version of country? Well, I mean, yeah, probably, but she also, too, she's just like, she's above it all. You know, she's her own. And I mean, for a long time, you know, like she was, she was a duo with Porter Wagner. and she was kind of the girl singer. And that was always, that was a country chestnut of the girl singer. Did you watch that show?

This is a big show in the 60s into the 70s. I mean, yeah, I mean, I was too little at the time. I wasn't aware of it at the time. But, you know, she talks about wanting to break away and start selling her own songs and that he didn't like it. You know, he didn't like it. But she, you know, so yeah, she was part of the system. But when she, she just has too much talent.

She's just, you know, like the fact that she wrote Jolene and I Will Always Love You, like in the same day. Right. The same day. The same day. Willie Nelson wrote like crazy and the nightlife and there's one other song. One of my favorite, all-time favorites, you were always on my mind, which got covered by the Pet Shop Boys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he wrote those songs in like a day.

Like on one drive from Nashville to Texas as he's driving, he's driving, he's writing like three of biggest songs ever, which I just feel like, both of them must have been visible from space on those days, like how you can do that in just a couple days. Yeah, I think on this show, we've talked a lot about how some of our favorite songs were crafted in a matter of like 15 minutes to two hours. Yeah, just the initial inspiration comes. And then, of course, the hard part maybe is the recording and like getting that second verse down. But yeah, Dolly talks about how she has those two. She actually talks about, I found an interview where she says, she thinks she wrote them both on the same night, but they're definitely on the same tape that she found. Yes. So her

presumption is they came from the same time period because they're next to each other on this tape. There's something about not overthinking. Yes. By the way this show takes a week to prepare. We're not in the same category. When you were at the country music, did you see the handwritten sheet of Jolene lyrics? I didn't see that particular one. It's it, yeah, in the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum. I need to go back to see that. There's the sheet

of her handwritten Jolene lyrics. And it looks like it's written in like a kindergartner pencil. Or like Greece really quickly. Really fast. Just grab. She just really thick pencil. Yeah. And it's like an all, it's folded up piece of paper. Well, she wrote something like 3,000 to 5,000 songs.

I've seen the estimate. She was a prolific, insanely prolific writer. And Porter Wagner, you mentioned. So Porter Wagner was her, as you mentioned, was the host of a show and then brought her on

to replace the other girl. And then Dolly's rise, which paralleled and then exceeded his own, led to, we'll be talking a little bit later about their split, pretty acrimonious split. But his daughter, Porter Wagner's daughter,

tells a little anecdote about how, once he saw Dolly Parton, like, in a fit of inspiration, like grab the ticket from a laundry, like a laundry ticket and just like had to like scribble something on the back. She just, the muse was hitting her and she couldn't wait. It had to be immediately a laundry ticket. So Andy, Jolene has remained popular for about 50 years, and it's been covered so many times over the years.

Why do you think it endorsed? I mean, that hook, just the guitar hook is, is, yeah. And I mean, and I heard you trying to play it. No, no, I mastered it. I'm not. I'm not a guitarist, but it sounds like a bear to play. It is a beast. It is a beast.

And Dolly, by the way, is the one who came up with it. Another amazing anecdote we'll tell when we get to the stems about that. Another Porter-Wagner moment. I'm so moved. When I was going through preparing for this episode, it's very moved by the story of Dolly and Porter through the ages. So there's a moment where it's maybe the last straw in their relationship comes about that guitar lick. Again, we'll talk about it when we play the stems a little later on the episode.

I think it's just, I think it's that little. and I just think Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, like that's... Haunting, right? Yeah. It's a build. Yeah, the combination of the two. Like, because you've got, you know, the guitar lick that's kind of doing something to your nether regions.

And then there's the other part that, you know, makes you feel like you're standing on a, on a cliff overlooking the ocean, you know, for a lost love, you know. Vocally, we are looking off, you know, off into the distance. a thousand yards there. But our hips are shaken and we can't control it. But I will also say, I think it's also the subject matter. Like, we're going to talk about storytelling. Yeah.

And there's some great characters in this, in the song. And also there's the vulnerability. It's, you know, all about that. Yeah. If you can write a song, any kind of pop standard where, like, the singers being, you know, vulnerable and not bombastic and, you know, full of braggadocio, there's something special there. Well, that's perfect. That brings us back to Dolly.

And I wanted to ask you, like, what in particular about Dolly with the t-shirts and everything? what is your connection to Dolly Parton? Like, what do you feel about her? And where do you think that feeling came from? Well, I mean, there's just the undeniable talent. Like, she just, and if you watch clips of her, like, just on the Tonight Show, like, there's a, if there's a clip of her singing a song about being on the Tonight Show called, like, you know, being on the Johnny Carson Show, and she plays it.

And she doesn't, she can't play it well because she's got nails. Like, she has two different kinds of guitar. playing there's the with nails and without nails and and it's just amazing like it's it's just the talent the talent the songwriting talent the singing talent and then on top of it charm and and I mean she's not you're going to go for the pun with the on top of it no no no no because she would well I know she would but I mean big titties who cares but but just she's so charming yes she's just such and and then when you find out just the stuff that she's done the goodness that she's brought to the world.

In addition to, like, she's so talented. She could have been an asshole her entire life, and we'd still be talking about. Instead, she's literally turning down a war and saying, like, I'm not worthy of that. Right, right. That's not really what I'm about. Charm is such a great word for her. And also, just to get back to the boob joke, because they are inevitable. She will be the first to make them or to head you off at the past and make your joke about

her boobs funnier. Absolutely. And that is a part, that contributes to the time. She is unimpeachable. Like I told her, one of my favorite jokes of hers ever was at an award show, and she was in a very tight outfit, and she said, she said, I'm something about regretting to wear this out, and that her dad had told her that she looked like,

she looked like 50 pounds of shit in a 40 pound bag. Holy cow. She told that joke. She said, she said shit. I think she's like, but that's what he said. By the way, I think you're being a little bit, you know, humble, and I love it. But like, you say, oh, when you see her on. clips of The Tonight Show. She came on

your show a couple of times. She did, yeah, yeah. And so I'm guessing you've met her. Absolutely. To ask, what did she like? Well, I'm assuming, because I mean, I've had it, and I'm not saying I'm an, well, I guess I am kind of saying I'm an expert. I've been around a lot of famous people. Yes. Like to the point where I forget

if I've met certain famous people. But you can, you do, I feel like I do, and I might be kidding myself in some cases, I can tell like whether somebody's just playing nice or whether they're actually nice. Yeah. And she's one where it's like, what you see is what you get.

I mean, and I just cannot believe that that is anything but that. And she just, there are people that just have what I can only consider a strength of character, which means that no matter what situation they go into, they are the same person that they were years before all the fabulous stuff happened to them. And they have been that same person walking throughout their entire. And it reads too. You can tell. You can pick up on it. Absolutely. Absolutely. I was snooping through your Twitter, admittedly. And I saw you retweeted. I'm barely on there anymore. I know. A lot of us are not on there like we used to be. X. I saw you retweeted something Dolly posted. She wrote,

keep your hair, heels, and standards high. Yeah. Keep your hair, heels, and standards high. What other life lessons have you learned from Ms. Parton? Gosh, I don't know about a life. Well, I mean, be kind. You know, take the goodness that you've gotten and, you know, and, uh, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, she, like, take the, the very humble childhood home that you lived in and build, like, a version of it that's also kind of a mansion, but she, you know, a billion dollar empire. Yeah. She, like, she, I, she had this, like, they kind of grew up in, you know, a shack kind of house, and she sort of built a version of it, but, oh, it's also palatial and gorgeous. Oh, do Perfect, yeah, yeah. We should all be so fortunate

as to build a large mansion and then charge people to come and see. Yeah, yeah. An amusement park, sure, yeah. It's so funny, you said that because literally on my drive to the studio today, have you guys seen the big billboard with Dolly Parton that says,

find the good in everybody. It's part of that kindness, Pass-in-on campaign. I don't drive the streets you drive up here. It was right there on Hollywood Boulevard. I chopper did. How embarrassing for me. I'm not doing that cacophony with.

Who rubs shoulders with famous people like you too. fancy boys over here. But yeah, she's a really good person. And as she's been quoted saying, I choose to be good. There's also like a shamelessness about her I've been thinking about. She has that the famous song, coat of many colors,

which is about her being poor and wearing this patchwork coat that her mama makes for her. But then everyone, all the kids at school are like mean to her and bully her. But like the, but she's proud of it and it doesn't phase her. And that's like as a dolly part and sort of perfectly encapsulating who she is.

You cannot shame her. Her poverty is not something she's ashamed of it. Clearly, you know, there's a story behind that. There's probably years that went by where she had to struggle with that. But like ultimately what we see is somebody who has conquered shame. You can't make fun of her because she's not ashamed. She loves who she is. She knows who she is.

And I really, I really love that about her. It's very inspiring. Yeah. She also, one thing I love about her is that, too, there's a friend of mine online, and this is like during the Trump years, who's an African-American woman who also grew up in the South, still lives in North Carolina, and loves country music.

And asked publicly, and it was on Twitter, like, do you think I'd be safe at a Dolly Parton show? And she'd actually been to Trump rallies because she's a sociologist and went to Trump rallies to look. And she said, like, would I be safe at a Dolly Parton show? I really want to go see Dolly Parton. And I DM'd her and I said, I said, I just saw her, and I said, it was one of the gayest audiences I've ever been around.

So I think you're going to be fine. It's so his, her audience is so inclusive and red states, blue states, great, black white, it's incredible. And she has, if you, her show is so camp, too. She has, like, you know, like hunky roadies, like shirtless, hunky, like Chippendale's guys that bring her guitars and stuff. And it's like, that's not just for the ladies. I'm not doing that just for the ladies. She plays with sexuality a lot, doesn't she? She does.

Even in the song, as we'll get into, lyrically. And the shamelessness about that, when she gets asked point blank, you know, like, is this song, is it a lesbian fantasy? Like, all kinds of ideas. She will never, she is so positive and inclusive and has been since this late 70s and 80s about it. Like, this is not like a new phenomenon. She's always consistently been like, my audience is gay.

Like, it doesn't matter whoever you are is how God made you. Like, it's really beautiful that she's able to kind of bring everyone. She's so loving. Yeah, go ahead. She embodies that ambiguity in her own life a little bit, too, I think. You know, I mean, as far as I can tell and things that I've read, you know. With the husband, with Carl. Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, I don't think that she's kind of like, I am whatever you want me to be, you know, and I'm not going to tell you what I am. Yeah. And you don't need to know. Yeah, go ahead and imagine whatever you want, yeah. Well, after the break, we'll talk through Dolly Parton's Jolene and we'll also be talking about the Beyonce version. All that after this break. Welcome back to one song. All right, luxury.

Let's talk about Jolene. Why don't you walk us through the writing of Jolene? And please tell us who was Jolene. Let's talk a little bit about Ms. Dolly Rebecca Parton, who, as we talked to, alluded to, was born in a one room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River, which is in Pittman Center, Tennessee. She was one of 12 children that her mother, Abby Lee,

had by the age of 35. So 12 kids by the time she was 35. Can you imagine? I can't even do the math on that. There was no breaks in between. Right, right. It all just happened. And I bring...

Do we know? I'm not sure. 12 by 35. I know there was 6.6 girls. And I bring up Ms. Abilie because Ms. Parton credits her songwriting from her mom's storytelling. And that's interesting to me because as I do my recent investigation on country music, as we mentioned, I'm not an expert in this. In fact, Jolene is probably my most favorite country song by a country mile because I

simply don't know the genre very much. But what I do is. know is that it is very much about storytelling and lyrics first. And what's fascinating if you do do the deep dive, and I recommend the Ken Burns documentary that we've been talking about. Yeah, we love that documentary. You haven't seen it in this wonderful stuff. But they really talk about and hammer home the point that so many of these stories have been in circulation for hundreds of years coming from the British Isles. And they're from, in this case, in particular, Dolly's mother's ancestors were Welsh. There's also a lot of Scots-Irish. These are stories that

people told their kids for one generation to the next. And by the time they come to America and by this unique combination of instrumentation with like banjos coming from Africa and the slaves and we have like Hawaiian pedal steel comes from Hawaii, all these incredible and violin. All of these influences with the stories on top are kind of the origins of country music.

But the storytelling front and center. So all this to say as we get into the story of the song, which is itself a story. story, that's something that's really struck me about country music. It may be different from some other genres. I mean, certainly, there are other genres. We were talking about how hip hop has the lyric centric

nature. Yeah, I was thinking like, you know, it's interesting because I think all genres have like those revered storytellers. Anytime I think, I'm always like, oh, Nas when he does New York State of Mind, Biggie when he does I've got a story to tell.

Even like, you know, Slick a children's story. Right. You know, beginning, middle, and end, like, you know, it's perfectly structured and the ability to tell a story while rhyming is incredibly difficult. So one thing also I want to say about the storytelling, the meta of the meta. So I was just in Nashville a few weeks ago. I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. I also went to RCA Studio B where the song was recorded. And one thing that struck me as I was only in Nashville 48 hours, but at the studio, logically, I heard the story about how Jolene was made and the story of how it was the same night that she wrote,

I will always love you. But it wasn't the only time on this trip to Nashville. I heard those stories. And what sort of struck me about it is that the storytelling about storytelling is itself its own sort of genre of thing. We love the song. We listen to Jolene over and over again.

I can hear the story of how Jolene was made over and over again. And when you listen to interviews with Dolly, she tells the same story over and over again. It's its own pleasurable thing to re-experience. Yeah, yeah. And so basically the story, as we may have heard many times, I'll tell it briefly one more time,

is that there were two different things that coalesce. One, she's playing a show, and there's a girl who comes up for an autograph afterwards, and Dali says, what's your name? And she says, my name is Jolene. And she walks away from that, and in her head it just struck a chord, this name, and she starts going, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,

and right there she discovers her melody and her song, and the repetition of the name itself that happened as she was trying to remember it, That becomes the song. And then so part two, what's married to that? And as she has this idea, like, what should the story be about? She attaches to that melody, the word, the name, and this sort of phrase, this chorus, the fact that her husband, Carl, by the way, we should mention Carl.

Shout out to Carl. They got married when she was 21. They've been married this whole time, 50 plus years. There's about eight photographs of Carl Dean in circulation. She's very protective of him. He's not interested in being a celebrity. Yeah. That's an interesting part of the Dolly Parton phenomenon as well, because that obviously provokes lots of questions and mystery and uncertainty. So Carl, according to legend, went to the bank. There was a teller there with red hair.

And he's going to the bank a little more often than Dolly feels comfortable with. She keeps, she's like, why do you keep going to the bank? And then one day she sees the teller there. He's like, oh, why are you pulling one dollar out at a time? It could be a little more efficient, Carl. I know you're not about the decision. We're getting a lot of ones usually indicates another kind of thing. Another type of infidelity. Yeah, probably. A little suspicious. So that is the story of Jolene according to legend, these two things.

And again, you will hear her tell this story for these last 50 years over and over again in every interview. And they're probably true, but it almost doesn't matter. Like, it's perfect. Those are great little things to tell. So without further ado, let's get into the stems. Let's get into the stems. I think you're going to start with the drums. Is he going to start with the drums?

Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Don't be so sure, Diallo Riddle. Yeah. And actually, you're right, I'm starting with the drums. Okay, great. Okay. So I did mention that this song was recorded at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee.

It was recorded on May 22nd, 1973, or possibly June 12th. There's some differing liner notes I was able to find. But in 1973, she goes in the studio. The song is a Gemini. The song is a Gemini. It's somewhere in that range. Somewhere in that range. And the drums were done by a gentleman called Kenny Malone, and they sound a little bit like this.

And you can hear the bleed. It's playing with. headphones on maybe or just in the other room with some separation. That's pretty much the beat. It's kind of like a bit of a disco beat, frankly. I was going to say, for 1973, that is kind of a disco beat. And I will say that most of my relationship with the song Jolene is when I was an open format DJ, meaning a DJ who could spend pretty much anything as long as people kept dancing.

Yeah, yeah. You can play this. Open format DJs. We loved this song because, you know, you could blend it with it's about a hundred, 120 BPM. Yeah, about 116. It's 121. 116.

It's 116. Okay, so it's, but you know, like, you can juice it up. You can pitch it up a little bit. And you can mix it in with the Michael Jackson, the prince. It works. Even like we're going to talk about it later, Beyonce formation is about 120. Like, you could go into your faster disco, you know, dance mix. Yeah, absolutely.

He laid it down. You laid it down. It feels like what, you know, the drums that we're going to hear later on some of Michael Jackson's, you know, on the wall and thriller. Or on the floor. I think it also, too, is like, it is a driving song that, like you say, mixes in with dance music. Yeah.

And again, which then to have this core of it be this vulnerability is really compelling. It's really compelling, you know. It's got a dancey beep, but it's a confession. It's like aggressive vulnerability, you know. Yeah. That sounds like a great record label, aggressive vulnerability. And literally on her, when she debuted the song on the Porter-Wagner show, that's how she described it. She said, it's an old-time folk song with an up-to-date beat.

So there's clearly some awareness that this beat would sort of bring modernity to the genre to the song. Right. So that's pretty much what Mr. Malone plays throughout the entire track, nothing fancy. But then about halfway through some congas enter, adding some more, frankly, you know, funk and disco elements or black music elements. These are African instruments. And that sounds like this. So it is deeply fine. You could have put a barving gay over that.

That definitely sounds like something that could have come out of Hitzville in 1973. When you take the top part off, this song is very flexible genre-wise, which is kind of some foreshadowing to what we'll talk about a little bit. I never had be, if you said to me, are there congas in Jolene? I would have said, I don't think so. Right. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff that I didn't notice until I pulled back, looked under the hood myself. And we'll talk about that in a moment.

But first, let's talk about the bass, which I believe is by Mr. Bobby Dyson. He starts off what's funny about the song, too, and it speaks a lot to how songs are recorded in Nashville. You know, a lot of times it is the rule, not the exception. It's safe to say. You'll go in, a songwriter will go in with a song, and there will be a team of professional musicians, like the guys. And they just, all day long, they are recording song after song after song. There may not be a lot of takes. There may not be a lot of rehearsals.

They'll just be given a chart, which is like a basic musical, what would you call it? Roadmap, maybe. Perfect. Yeah, yeah. I like that. A blueprint. If you will. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that'll give them enough to be like to pick up. It'll just be the chords. It'll just be the changes. And in this case, I hear in the bass that he starts out with something. He just starts out with like a chord. And then he's like, oh, okay, I think I got this. Then he starts playing the baseline. And that's for the rest of the song. He doesn't do that first thing ever again. So I'll just play that for you. note, quarter note, boom, boom. That's where it gets country to me. Yeah, absolutely. And then it gets funky. Yeah.

Now, did they record all of this? Are we getting bleed because it was recorded all at once? Yeah, this is being recorded live in that studio, and where I just was in RCA Studio B in Nashville. Yeah. There is this little middle, it's not eight, middle ten. I'll talk about the unusual numbers of the song in a second, but normally you'd have a bridge or what we'd call a middle eight

in like a Beatles song, the British call it to middle eight. But it's literally eight bars. In this song, it's 10 bars, for reasons I'll explain it in a second. That's the one change where it kind of gets mellow for a second. Let's hear what the bass does there. It gets a little chill. And then he starts to come back a little louder. So that's interesting.

Let's lock it in together and put the bass and drums together and see what that feels like. That is just hella funky. Now all I can hear early confidence. That's all I can hear. You're like, that's a nice touch. That feels like it would be really fun to play. That sounds great. That's a groove, stone groove.

Yeah, that could be a funk song. Yeah. It really could. Absolutely. Or the theme song to an early Muppet show. Like, I can totally see. Right, or a Quinn Martin production. Like, you know.

I think it's definitely telling that she calls it on the, when she plays it on TV, she says it's a folk song with an up-to-date beat. Yeah. So clearly that was like a choice made in the studio. Like, let's bring this into the 1973. Yeah, yeah. There's a story behind the guitars on this song. Is that the story? So Dolly Parton wrote that famous guitar like. I'm going to play it for you, but I'm going to tell you the story afterwards. So this is Chip Young on guitar, and I'll explain why it's not Dolly a minute. And this is the thumb-picking part, which is the riff, the iconic riff by Chip Young, and here it is.

And I'll stop it right there, right as it's going into the second part, which I'll explain a little bit about. So I mentioned that there's some funny timing stuff in this. The bars, like usually with songs, it's pretty common in pop music. You got like these, your brain expects there to be groups of four. So it'll be like four bars or eight bars or 16 bars or something, right? And then your body's like, oh, it's about to go into the chorus. You know it because you're mentally, your body's counting it. In this case, it's unusual.

The Jolene section, the chorus is five and a half bars. So I'll count it with you and I'll play the guitar part. And you'll hear he's also not doing the finger picking in this. So here's the guitar. in the Jolene part, picture Dolly singing it. It's basically one bar of four and then one bar of two and then three bars of four. There you go. So I'll play it for you in the room. One, two, one, two, three, four, one, two, three.

So that's unusual and that's, I think, part of the effect of the song and the surprising it comes from your sort of hesitant. It stops short. You're only getting half of a bar. and then suddenly you're into the next thing. Sometimes, and I love this show, but sometimes you got, it's like it feels more like math. I mean, you know. There is a little bit of math. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, but I, like, I'm not, I don't exactly know what you're talking about.

Okay. You know, and I can understand, like, I understand, like, I understand what that hook does and what that riff does. But like, if you'd said, oh, there's a one, two there in the middle, I, you could get, I would take two years and never have figured that out. You know what's interesting? I'm so glad you read that. The song's about vulnerability. Thank you for being vulnerable. Sure, sure.

No, you know, like there are times when, when, because I didn't play an instrument with like chords and notes, like I was a drummer. Yeah. Like, I only know the math. I only know how to count. So I know what you're saying. And as a drummer, I do feel like we often feel like when you step away from four, do you know what four-four is? Sure. Yeah, okay.

So when you step away from four-four, things get really interesting. And I'm so glad that he brought that up because. in my head, I didn't notice it until he brought up that, you know, it kind of goes to five, which is insane. That extra thing in there is what makes the song feel kind of reflective. Yeah. You know, it's like, yeah, it's got this cool, danceable beat, but then it's like, it's like when you're hit with a deep thought while dancing.

You know, you're like dancing. Oh, wait a second. Okay, back to dancing. Yeah, there's a little stagger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like an extra count in there for some reflection on the behalf of it. And it makes it stand out too. It's a subtle little thing and you don't, as a listener, you don't have to know what happened. And for years, I didn't know until I stopped to sort of try

and figure it out for this episode. I was like, what? That's so unusual that it's only half a bar in that one section. And it doesn't add up to eight total. And that's just a contribution to the song, kind of like the funk beat. All these things together, make it Jolene. But no single thing has like outsized importance. Because I am assuming that that happens, like that there, that's not like back engineered. Like, what if we threw in an extra two beats, you know? It's just something that comes out and then it's

like, oh, that's just how it happens. I don't know. Yeah, we probably total speculation on my idea. I like to think that the, you know, Dolly and her collaborates, they were feeling that. Yeah.

I like that they were feeling it. Yeah. And so they did it because I think it would be almost maniacal. So it was like, hey, man. Yeah, yeah. And like, so it draws like the drum. Let's put in some prog rock like,

yes. or Genesis, like time signature thing. I think, I think you're right. I think it's, I bet you when Dolly came away from that initial incident, which may be apocryphal anyway, but the story of walking away, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, that was that many beats. That was a count of six. Yeah.

And it just didn't work to add two more. It felt like too long. Yeah. Cut it down by two beats would be not enough. So my guess is it was a feeling exactly what you're saying. Yeah. It was a vibe that way. And it happened to be unusual.

and for 40, 50 years, we mostly don't notice it except kind of in our bodies, but it's never like a distraction. Like, I can't listen to this because they dropped two bars. And I wonder if when they started to play it, you went, oh, hey, yeah, wow.

Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, you know, oh, gosh, there is, isn't there? I hope they literally said, oh, wow. Oh, gosh. I think you're absolutely right, Andy, because I think she came in with the song that she'd written on the guitar. She didn't have a drummer.

She probably wasn't necessarily, I doubt she wrote it down as sheet music when she was writing it. Yeah. So I'll bet you're 100% right. Someone was like, wait a second. Oh, that's unusual. What should we do?

Leave it. It sounds amazing. Yeah. Well, earlier we talked about Porter Wagner and we talked about their relationship. And as I mentioned, I was very moved by the entire story of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagner. It starts out with him basically taking her under his wing on this show and essentially with their duets on TV for seven years and bringing her into RCA for a record deal. He absolutely helps to make her famous.

And she's appreciative, but by 1973, she's over it. And that night that she wrote Jolene, she also wrote a song about Porter Wagner called I Will Always Love You, which is about her leaving the show. And she tells the story, and Dolly Parton fans and Jolene fans, it's one that I have seen and heard in many podcasts and videos, of bringing it to Porter, and this is sort of how she tells him that it's over.

And he's really upset. But in the moment of her being, when the song is played to him, it helps soften kind of the blow of it being kind of a career ending thing for him and career beginning for her. All this to say, and I'm going to tell the end of that story later, but in this moment when the song is recorded, Porter Wagner says, hey, let me play that.

And he picks up the guitar to try to play the doda-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Because Dolly brings it in, and it's her lick, but her nails are too long. So she can't play it. Porter's like, hand me that guitar. I want to try it. And it can't do it. And it's a little humiliating.

And in the room, it's just a moment where it's sort of the beginning of the end. It's happening in real time. And there's some sense of like, you know, this guy is trying to control Dolly, but Dolly's not going to let it happen. Let me ask you a question. Were they just colleagues and never romantically linked? There's a lot of speculation. It sounds like a love song.

They have never explicitly described what happened behind the scenes. They have never denied it. Yeah. There are a million. interviews with both of them while they'll allude to not yes but not no yeah this is this really ambiguous middle ground do you know about this i mean yeah i mean i've heard that about it but i mean but it also too i mean what just strikes me i know i've heard that story before but this is the first time that it struck me i don't think that what i'm going to say exists or there's possibly it

doesn't exist and if it does exist it could have been one of many things but there's a macavelian genius to kissing off your boss with what has become a modern American classic standard, you know, and if you're going to say goodbye, it's like, it's like breaking up with someone and saying, here's a hundred thousand dollars, you know, or, you know, like here's a gold statue of you. It's, I mean, I'm sure that. Or here's $100,000, but it's mine. Well, but, but I mean, but it's still, in terms of emotion.

It's an emotional, like to say, to have, like imagine Dolly Parton saying, I wrote, I will always love you about you. Yeah. And as sad as it is, it's also, and I can, I mean, when you look at the way Porter Wagner dresses, I think that's an ego-driven person. So. So when there's some confidence in ego there. Yeah, yeah. So I think that, like, appealing to his ego with a, with, you know, like, like, like, you know, like. Great theory.

He broke psychologically. Yeah, yeah. I think that appealing to his ego to say bye is a great, like, misdirection. That's really brilliant. I think you're right. Yeah. And saying, I will always love you and tying up the ambiguity of what their relationship is is perfect. Because from his ego, it's also clear when you listen to him hedge the question in interviews

that he wants you to think that they're boning. Right, right. So that gives him a little bit of that juice as well, right? Well, luxury, I just want to say right here now, if one song ever ends, I want you to know that I will always love you. So just long story short, Porter wasn't letting Dolly play the guitar and Dolly goes, or Dolly tells the story, he wanted to impress the musicians with that lick. I remember him trying to teach it to the guitar players on that session.

It was not coming out right at all. I remember I was just getting more and more upset. And I remember just getting the guitar from Porter and saying, just let me show them the lick. So Dolly picks it up, shows Chip Young, the lick. Chip Young plays it to perfection. And that's what you hear in the final version of the song. Wow. Let's play a little old dolly just picking up that guitar and teaching of how to play it. With her massive fingernails, yeah. She's an incredible musician all around. Yeah. Not just the songwriting, not just the singing, but the she plays.

Not just the philanthropist or the uniquely gifted. A dozen instruments as well. Yeah. And guitar is one of her skills. Let's play one more, a couple more sections from the song that you may not have noticed before. That lick actually, the finger picking really happens only at the beginning. and a little bit towards the end. For most of the song, what you're hearing sounds more like this. And you're obviously hearing several guitars in there. There's at least three by my ears count. Some of the names that show up on the credits include Jimmy Colvard and Dave Kirby. And then there's also a note for Stu Bessor, I believe, is it's either Stu Bessor or Wayne Moss on the steel. Steel string. And that's what this is coming in here.

And by the way, I should say... That is sweet. That is plenty sweet. I'm just going to say, like, I'm pretty sure I'm hearing some banjo and some fiddle in there. It's a little difficult to pick out all the pieces. But certainly in that moment with that rising... Yeah, and the steel guitar almost sounds like strings, too. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot happening in that mix.

But it's really beautiful, and that's the moment that kind of emotionally we're going to the next level with that rise. Yeah. That sounds like violin. Yeah, I'm hearing some fiddle in there. I'm hitting some steel. I think the pedal, the pedal, steel, which is definitely there, and the fiddle, definitely on the track. I think they may be playing similar parts.

Right. They're trying to sound like each other. I hear the same thing you do. I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. It's kind of like the vocoder talk box thing on the daft punk song we were talking about on that episode. So all in the blend, you're getting this next level of emotionality. And by the way...

And it also reminds me of what you said earlier about, like, you know, in country music, they were trying to sweeten things up. Right. Very sweet. Yeah, this is the sweetening that Andy was referring to. Yeah. Right, the strings. And also, coming from drums and bass sort of funk bottom end,

now we're starting to get things that we're like, oh, I see why we call this country now. Like, these are the elements that are very much like what we would call country music elements. You're a country music more of a fan than we are. So, like, it does seem like most country music, and Elvis does this too, right? There's this, like, part towards the end where it gets a little chill. and maybe they start talking, like Elvis will do the talking thing. Or Dolly will do the talking thing like she does,

and I always love you. Tupac does that too. Topac does that talking. The ink spots do that. The Mills Brothers do that. I wonder what the origin of that is, that moment. To me, I wonder if it comes from like live performances. It might be like a moment to sort of like talk to the audience or something like that.

But it's the most vulnerable part. Yeah, well, those old, you know, the ink spots, the Mills Brothers, there was always the one Mills brother who would always do the one, yeah, would always do the, just basically speaking the part that they'd all been singing. Or sometimes it's sort of like a moral conclusion. And that's why you never, you always got it or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. In case you missed the point of the song, I'm going to tell it to you right now, one sentence or one. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to always bring it back to hip-hop, but it's kind of like that, even when Tupac talks at the end of a song like, hit him up. It's like, just in case you missed what all this vitriol I've been. All the art before that was ambiguous and vague.

These are some disses that I could not figure out adequate rhymes for. I want you to know that in case you missed it. Well, there's also too, in, you know, as you said, so much of country music is storytelling songs, comes from storytelling songs. And that would be where the twist was. Oh, right. That would be where the, you know. Right. you know, I had been in the arms of my best friend's wife, you know, that was, that was like,

it's all the setup for this moment. Yeah. And it's actually, it's, and it's extra, um, dramatic. Yeah. To kind of change what's happening musically. Yeah. You go like, all right, we're going to chill and you're going to listen. Yeah. Because this is where I got my gun out and I shot him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's maybe. Or there's the George Jones song. He stopped loving her today, which, you know, when you first, you hear about that song, whatever, and then when you, you really listen to it, you realize, oh, because he died. Like that's, you know, you know, and it ends with like, but this time, he's over her for good. He's stopped loving her today.

Wow, that is a gut punch, too, when it's delivered like that. And no one can miss the point of what's happening. Absolutely. Luxury, are we ever going to get to the vocals? I mean, all these instruments are great. I know, I'm sorry, Andy. But, you know, it's a Dolly Parton song, and so far we've barely heard any Dolly Parton. I have upset our guest and I apologize.

No, we should use you saying that every episode. Hey, are we ever going to get to the vocals? Let's get to the words. Guys, I am so sorry it took so long to get to the meat and potatoes of the song, but here they are, meat and potatoes by Dolly Parton. What, Jolene? It's a perfect. It's a Dolly Parton song, for sure.

She's definitely written. Except it would probably be Taters. All right, here we go. Dolly Parton. Vocals, Jolene. Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, please don't take my man. So let's just start right there. I mean, haunting.

Yeah. You have one word. I want a one word answer. Yeah, haunting. And, you know, and there is something very, and her voice on many songs. It's, I mean, there's so much vibrato, and it's so, like, kind of light and high and airy. But this has real guts to it. Like, when she's singing that, it's not.

just kind of that tweety, you know. It's got some richness to it. Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting you mentioned that because from my understanding of her history, she had trouble breaking through in the industry until Porter Wagner because they thought her voice was too high. Yeah. There just weren't that many women, period, singing like that. But secondly, women singing high and her voice was not, not naturally, but unusually high. Yeah. But she's like, maybe she started to like work it in this new range. And I think you're right. She's found kind of like, it's sort of like a huskier Huskier's own in addition.

Yeah. Can we hear some of the vocals from the verse, from the first verse? Let's do that. Your beauty is beyond compare with flaming locks of urban hair with ivory skin and eyes of emerald green. That's pretty good songwriting too. I mean, that's a lot of information. There's a lot of imagery.

Simile, which, you know, is like the cheapest shit of songwriting simile. And it all... Summer Rain. It's all, yeah, it's all not a wasted syllable. You're right. It all hits and hits hard and gets out everything you need to see. And like that, just that rush description of her is like, oh, I, yeah. You can picture this person.

Jolene is fucking hot, you know? It's hot. Yeah. Yeah. And I cannot compete with you, Jolene. Yeah. It's like the ending. It's, it's.

Cole Porter would be happy about this. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Yeah. Classic songwriting going on. there is Dolly the Hemingway, if you will, the songwriting. Oh gosh, I don't know, is she?

I haven't read enough Hemingway to read it. So, yeah, we'll give you some Hemingway to read and then you can get back to us. And then we'll do part two of the show next week. I don't think she's about I mean, you know. She's more like someone like Randy Newman, you know, I mean, when you're talking about economy

and, you know, yeah, yeah. No, that's a really good comparison. Yeah, we love Randy Newman here. The storytelling and there's a little bit of wit in there too. There's a little bit of Witten here. I mean, it's not a funny story, but the vulnerability makes you go like there's a little bit of a smirk

like you can kind of connect with. Let's listen to that middle 10 section, the chill part, the ink spots portion. I had to have this talk with you. My happiness depends on you and whatever you decide to do, Jolene. Whatever you decide to do. That line always gives me all the power.

Yeah. I can't do anything. I'm at your mercy. Yeah. I mean, one thing we touched on earlier is the vulnerability in the song, Andy, do you hear that in the wrong? Oh my God, yeah, yeah.

And this is also, and I know we're going to talk about the Beyonce version, which is not vulnerable. And it's coming. Yeah, there's a stuff to say about that too. Yeah, but this, you know, surprise, surprise, it was a very sexist industry at that time, still pretty sexist. But, you know, but yet the sort of classic country woman song about a man is,

you ain't woman enough to take my man, or you're going to Fifth City, which are Loretta. Fis City. Loretta Lynn songs about, you know, hands off, he's mine. You know, now I'm jumping to ska. English beat? Huh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But that, there was an aggressive kind of honky tonk. We'll mix it up. So that this is, there's not, I can't think of another, another country song. Yeah, that's like, that it's just like, please, you know, like I'm begging you. I'm begging, I'm pleading. Whatever you decide to do.

I got nothing. Just don't do it. Yeah, yeah. It's please enough? Yeah. And it, but, you know, it is like, again, at the center of this song that is all power and skill and talent is, you know, I'm scared to death that I'm going to be alone. Right. I'm going to lose my man. Yeah.

And also, too, this is a powerful woman. This is like, even as you're listening to this song, Dolly Parton is a, she's a, she's a, she's a, star you know like there's not a lot of 73 she's a star there's not a lot of stars who are saying you know I'm threatened by another woman please for the you know just for the sake of

my happiness leave him alone right you're right that's pretty fearless of her to be doing yeah yeah breaking some of the rules of the genre and of a woman singing in the genre absolutely pioneering it well I would not be able to close out the song without

playing you my favorite part of the song the most toning part of the song, and it only happens briefly and then the song is over, but the final spooky Jolene. Yeah, yeah. Let's hear that isolated. Jolene. Jolene. That's fucking insane.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a crazy choice. Yeah. What was going on in RCA Studios? I mean, just like the fact that it only happens once and it's the tail end and it's different. How is that a, is that a, is she's singing like that? It's a little bitrate. Yeah, I would think.

There are some background vocalists that are credited in one version that I found. Yeah, there's three Herschel Wingenton, June page, Dolores Edgian, and Joe Babcock could be in there. Joe Babcock? It actually sounds like her voice, though, multi-tracks. I don't know that. I don't hear different voices in there. Let's play it one more time and let's, like, really dig deep on the archaeology of this moment. That's Joe Babcock.

I would love to. I totally heard him. That's classic Joe. Classic cock. I would love to know how that came about just that one moment, that decision. Those notes that it only happens at the end, it's so interesting. You wonder if the engineer had been listening to pet sounds recently. I was just like, hey, maybe we can do this one thing.

I've wanted to try so long. But it's a desperate plea, right? This is like, it's like you hear off in the distance like fading away like, Jolie. Yeah. It's like falling over a cliff or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's very ghostly.

It's very ghastly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just going to say it as a songwriter. and I'm no Dolly Parton. I don't think I need to tell anybody in this room or listen to the show. I am no Dolly Parton on any level. However, I was struck just now when we listen to the lyrics. I had to have this talk with you.

My happiness depends on you. Okay, that a little bit bothers me that the run. The you and you, yeah. I will say it. I'm going to hot take on the show. Hot take on the show. You can never rhyme the same word with the same word? I mean, it is a little cheap.

A little bit cheap. A little bit cheap. Y'all could not have listened to those early Master P albums. You would have been very disappointed. Well, and also the fact is I've heard. Anyway. No, you go ahead. No, no, no.

This is not the time nor the place for old Master P lyrics. Please continue. No, I mean, I've heard this song a gazillion times, and I never, that never struck me. And that kind of stuff strikes me all the time. And I'm like, as a writer, shame on you. Yeah. You're writing or your editing brain. It's like when you just see it raw like that, you're like, should we try a little harder on this?

Yeah. You try to find a line for the word you. There's few options. I think it speaks to how wonderful her delivery was that you guys never really noticed. Yeah. That's true. That's what I'm saying. There's so much else going.

It's like maybe a little cheapy here. Yeah, she's earned it. Well, let's just close the loop on the Porter Wagner story. It ends kind of interestingly. So this is the moment where things go to hell. She writes the song, presents it to him, and then leaves. And then he sues her for a million dollars. Very acrimonious split.

And long story short. million dollars. A million dollars in 1970s for Dolly Parton's a lot of money. She doesn't have it yet. So she over time pays him off, pays him back. And then Porter Wagner has a dark moment where his career kind of ends, essentially. He's not in a good place. He owes the IRS a lot of money. Water's under the bridge. Many years have gone by. And Dolly Parton buys his music publishing company as a gesture as a way of compensating, a way of giving him money and buying an asset, I suppose. Not that he was a big hit songwriter. He didn't need to do it. But there, he goes on his deathbed. She comes and they have kind of a moment of reconciliation. I was very moved reading all this stuff. She did not have to do that.

She did not have to buy his publishing company, the value of which nowhere near exceeds, you know, matches her own. Right. Yeah. I mean, don't we all kind of won Dolly Parton by our side when the, when the time comes? Like, Dolly Parton by your bedside is goals, I think. Yeah. Like we said, this song, it connects. with people. She's so human in it. And I don't think it's a surprise to anybody that this song starts getting covered by other artists almost immediately.

Almost immediately. It is so ironic that we're all talking about the Beyonce cover because the very first cover that we could find of this song is actually not even a year has passed. This song was released in 1973. Before 1973 is over, this song is covered by Soul singer Gloria Ann Taylor. So, you know, we're talking about the Beyonce cover. Yeah.

You know, she's an R&B artist. Yeah. The first person that we can find to cover Jolene is an R&B artist, a black woman, singer Gloria Ann Taylor, and her version of Jolene sounds like this. Your beauty is the unbearance. No, baby hair and golden skin. She changed the description of Jolene. I was curious if that was going to happen.

So not only is R&B. artist covering Jolene, nothing new. Changing the lyrics to suit the singer. Also nothing new. And also not that different. Like there's more music and it might be as a shade faster, but it's pretty much. It's a little faster. It does feel a little more soul.

It's a little more soul. But I mean, but yeah, but you strip away some of those instruments and Dolly could have sang over that track. I started laughing a little bit when I heard it because I was, I was picturing the Doobie brothers for some reason. It sounds like, whoa, whoa, listen to the music. It's got that kind of vibe to it. It's a little too much for my taste to know.

I'll tell you, we played it from, we wanted to obviously hear her sing Jolene, but if I played it just a snippet from the beginning, you'll hear that it definitely has a slightly different feel. Okay, so it builds to that moment. Yeah, it builds to that. Let's hear a little bit of the beginning. Yeah, it's not until then that you even know it's Jolene.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it does have a, you know, we sometimes jump around in songs, but like if you heard that, you wouldn't necessarily think, oh, this is about to be a Jolene. Yeah, yeah. But it could be Doobie Brothers. It's so Doobie Brothers. It could be Doobes.

There's like 20 people on stage playing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's five conga players, you know, three drummers, shirtless guy with a mustache, you know. I always say at some point Lano Richie was on stage with the Commodore's, he probably looked around. He's like, do we need 35 Commodores? I feel like I could keep, I feel like I could pocket some of this money. Then there was the Olivia Newton-John version from 1976.

Let's hear a little bit of... Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, N.J. Jolene, Jolene. Olivia Newton-John has such a distinct voice. Yeah, she does. Even when she's singing like Dolly, like she's got something that, you know,

taps into the soul of people who were born in the 1970s. Yeah, yeah. It's when she hits the high notes. You're like, oh, there she is. There's Olivia. There she is. And I'm not a musician, But is that guitar lick dumbed down for somebody that probably couldn't handle the original Jolene lick?

Well, it's, you know, fingerpicking is what's done in the original. Yeah, and this is a pick. That's its own thing to master. Yeah, yeah. And it's very possible that this guitar player either couldn't do it or didn't. It might have been a choice to make it more of a rock. Just simplify it. Just simplify it to make it more of a rock thing.

That's a live performance. So this guy doesn't have the luxury of like sitting back, you know, and doing multiple takes. And it's just on an electric guitar. It's not acoustic, too. Yeah, I was hearing that too. I'm hearing the simplification there too. This song has proved so popular. So it's released in 1973.

We were able to find covers of it in every single decade, popular covers, covers that actually people listen to in every single decade since this release. Yeah, and it's funny you should mention that because I literally first heard the song as a cover. There was a moment in the mid-80s, in fact, I felt like to cover Jolene as a goth rock band, like The Sisters of Mercy, which is where I first heard it. Oh, yeah. There was some significance to that. There was some irony, because we talk a lot about how.

this moment in the 80s, you of all people on the show. We can actually go down a rabbit hole about this. But there's this moment where, like, irony and referencing is becoming more of a mainstream thing. It's not just for the cool kids who read Mad Magazine. It's becoming more of a thing that Dave Letterman is bringing up and later Conan, et cetera. So this is the Sisters of Mercy version. This is the first time I heard it.

Sisters of Mercy, one of my favorite bands. And I'm so happy I get to play them on the show. This is Joeline with Andrew Eldridge on his dark, dusky, baritone. Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, I'm begging off me, please don't take my man. I'll fast forward to the drums. So that is goth. Wow, wow. That is so funny.

That is goth. Yeah. You didn't know. Well, that's, I think that the thread that carries through is camp. Camp? Yes. That is camp. You're nailing it.

That is camp. You're right. And that's consistent with the original. Yeah. To be camped. There is some, the dolly campiness. She calls herself Backwoods Barbie. Right, right, right.

This is a Backwoods Barbie. The song has it in its DNA. So when you cover it, you can't help but do that yourself. Yeah, that's meant to be, that's not meant to be, that's meant to be kind of funny. And there's nothing else about Sisters and Mercy. That's funny. I'm a big fan of this band. But on record, like they are funny behind the scenes and interviews.

They're not funny music. Right. But that's funny. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I will say that, listen, I'm not, you know, We are not huge fans of AI, you know, manipulating AI to re-sing songs. Well, I will.

Is anyone who doesn't have a billion dollars of family of AI? I will be once we're going to Alibato, a huge fan. I'm a huge fan. And his family, huge fan. But now I kind of want to hear like the Joy Division version of Jolene. Like I want to hear, you know, now I want to put a couple of different voices. You want to get all the humorless, dower singers to try to get another lease on life by covering it. Mary change, Jolene.

Exactly. By the way, one more, this is not technically a cover. This is more like a remix, but I actually start 98% of my DJ sets with this incredible. A lot of people know there's been a phenomenon for a few years, the meme of like slowing down Dolly Parton's Jolene to 33 from 45. On TikTok. This is even slower. This is the Peter Vistie slow version, and it's 11 minutes long. And it's one of my favorite ways to start a DJ set.

See, this is like, I don't have any idea about this. I don't know about DJ stuff. Got the cowbell. Yeah. This is also, this is very much after the hero of our story has been beaten down and he arms himself to attack the drug lord's, you know,

home base. Yes, and murder everyone. It's a montage and it's long and bloody. Michael Man is the director, right? You get all 12 minutes. And of course, Beyonce covered Jolene on Cowboy Carter.

and she totally reimagined the song. Let's play a little bit of Beyonce's Jolene. You're beautiful, beyond compare. It's more than beauty and seductive stairs to come between a family and a happy man. Let's talk about the Beyonce version. We're not even talking from a musical standpoint. Let's talk about the lyrics,

because I think that that's been the part that's been the most debated. Like there was a critical response to this song. Which irritates me so much. But go on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to put it. out there like there was an article in slate

that wrote why do Jolene if you're going to remove the most unique and powerful element of the song that the narrator is bearing her vulnerability and asking the mercy of her rival now this is just my take on it real quick and I want to get yours

Andy and luxury my take is actually that believe it or not even though on their face the lyrics of the Beyonce version sound more like you know a threat like hey don't come from my man. Yes, that is literally what she's saying. But my take is that this actually is Beyonce being vulnerable. Yeah. Not everybody is going to react in the same. Different kind of

vulnerability. There isn't just one vulnerability. This is a 2024 black woman being vulnerable. Right. You know, she's basically, you know, I saw she feels threatened. I saw somewhere else where they were like, yeah, you know, she reduces this song to brag about the greatness of her own marriage. Yes. In literal terms, yes, but I actually think that this is Beyonce. sort of saying like, you know, in her own way, you know, I am vulnerable. I'm not going to show my rival Jolene that I am vulnerable. Yeah. But I see vulnerability in these lyrics.

I know that's a subtle sort of nuanced thing to say, but I'm feeling it. How did you, how did you hear the Beyonce? I mean, I think, well, and I do think it's interesting that Dolly does a spoken word intro to it. Oh, Dolly totally goes out. Dolly loves the Beyonce. It's not good hair. You know, there's been good hair and Auburn hair. Becky, yeah.

But I just, I mean, I do think, yeah, there's a lack of, there's a lack of vulnerability. I see what you're saying that this is her version of vulnerability and that a woman saying, don't you dare take my man, that that is a scared hurt person underneath that. But to me, what the main thing is is that this version of Jolene is on Beyonce's country album. And Beyonce is going into hostile waters. She knows what she's doing by Here's My Beyonce's Country album. And she knows that the shit that's going to stir up. And she knows that the hostility she's going to be met with.

So to go into that and just do a straight up vulnerable version of Jolene, I just think it would be disingenuous within the context of this album. It also felt like it would be a very un-Biontie thing to do. A very un-Biontie thing to do. She says, like, I love country music coming up. I used to go to the rodeos, and I would see, she was like, I saw black people and Latino, and of course, white people at the rodeo, and I wanted to do an album. She actually says, you know, we all call it a country album.

I think the press release called it, but, like, if you read what Beyonce said, she's like, this is actually more of a Beyonce album. Yeah. With these country and black folk influences more than it is just a straight-up country. She's on a horse. You know, she's on a horse on the cowboy hat. But I mean, I just think, also, too, I'm sure that there's, you know, part of doing this album, too, is I can't imagine that she wasn't thinking. I'm going to introduce country music to people that have never heard country music.

And I'm going to pick one of my favorite country songs. So she's going to introduce them to Jolene. One of the biggest country songs, one of the most iconic ones. Yeah, and she's going to Beyonce it up. But it's interesting, you're making me think, too, because when you do a cover, like I've done a couple of covers in my life. I did. And part of the process is like you're starting with. There's sort of a taste making thing.

Like what would be a cool thing to cover? Hasn't been done before. How can I make it different? How can I put my stamp on it? Right. Because otherwise it's karaoke and you're going to lose to the original. And also something that I genuinely love. It has to be something I can get inside of and feel passion for.

And she chose to not change, for example. Basically, the instrumentation is essentially the same song with the guitar riff and then we've got a little stomp on the bottom. But as we just heard together, there is already kind of a funk beat in the original too. She doesn't change that. She's a female vocal, like with the Sisters of Mercy, sometimes if you get a guy singing it when it was a girl originally, that's where the twist can come in too. Yeah, yeah. She doesn't change that.

She's also a woman. Her changes are the subtle, the lyrical things we're talking about. She also adds a little bit later. She adds a bridge, like a second part to the song. So that's a change. That's a pretty substantial way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting that literally it is a cover in the sense that the writing credits only show Dolly Parton.

So technically speaking, it could be an interpolation or an interpulation. That's what normally this would be. Because the cover is very explicitly all of and only the original lyrics. But that isn't what's happening here. So it's very interesting the choices she makes, what to keep, what to discard. And I think you're right, they're all intentional. She intentionally said, I'm going to take a song that people know. I'm not going to change it sound.

I'm also a woman singing it. The changes are going to be these subtle areas here, the lyrical concept. And I'm not a Beyonce expert, because I'm not, like, super familiar with her entire catalog. But it seems to me that Beyonce does not play characters. When Beyonce sings, it's Beyonce. And I think that. That's a really good point. You know, I don't think that, which I imagine at times is probably confining.

It's probably, you know, it's so interesting. You know. I think you're right. So I think that she can't sing Jolene as anybody but Beyonce. who's been Beyonce and who's married to Jay-C. That's a super astute comment, and I'm processing it. There may be a handful of songs,

I'm sure the Beehive will be on our case in the comments. Yeah, they'll say, this is her in character. But for the most part, you're right, and that is a big part of her, that is who she is as an artist. It's authentic. You're hearing her tell her story and how much she loves her man.

And we know this, it plays out in the culture too at large. All of her Instagram pictures and all of her, whatever she's doing is all part of the narrative of her, of Beyonce. And she can, the only Beyonce you get is what she gives you to. So when she does a cover, she's not playing the character. She doesn't do, you know, you don't read a lot of like interviews, articles about. It's just what you get at Beyonce, she gives you. And this is, she's giving you her version of Jolene.

And so it's going to be Beyonce singing Jolene. It's not Beyonce putting on a character. I think Beyonce, putting on a character. I think Beyonce, Taylor Swift does a lot of this. Like, I think certain people are like, this is, this is the part of me that I'm going to share. and that's what. But I just, I kind of bring it back around to the, to the issue that, like, this is Beyonce's version of being vulnerable. And I think that that is, you know, I think that vulnerability is still there. I think that's true. What's made this song so popular that it's had

as many covers as it's had, so many iterations. I love the fact, I'd actually never heard the Sisters of Mercy version. So, I mean, like, they took it and they made it theirs. And I think that it speaks to Dolly's songwriting that so many people's diversions, Sisters of Mercy and Beyonce can both come to this song, both make their changes, whether musical or lyric. Yeah, yeah. And people still respond to it. It is an amazing song. Right.

Yeah. That is a testament to the song. Yeah. That underlies all of it. Yeah. To that one song. I have a question for you. What is your favorite Jolene cover?

And also, if you feel like letting us know, what is your favorite cover of all time? Oh, wow. probably Donnie Hathaway's live cover of Jealous Guy. Whoa. Wow. Do you know that song? No, let's pull that up. You are clearly a Lennon fan.

I do like John Lennon a lot. I mean, he's probably my favorite Beatle musically, but like personality-wise, he kind of seems like an asshole a lot of the time, you know? But I'm actually like more stones than Beatles anyway. Really? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we're more beetles and stuff.

Yeah, I'm more Beatles and Stones, but as we talked about recently, kinks are my Beatles these days. Oh, really? Yeah. If you're going to be in that British invasion. Right, sure. Let's hear a little bit of Donnie Hathaway's jealous guy. I was dreaming of.

Donnie Hathaway has just one of those voices. I was just telling you yesterday, I think we have to do, because we have to getty Hathaway's stems. Oh, the ghetto. We had to do a Donnie Hathaway. Yeah, yeah. His story is amazing. His voice is amazing.

His voice is insane. Yeah. His daughter's, wonderful singer. Lala Hathaway. Yeah, yeah. She's great. She's great. Maybe White House name drops him and Oh, yeah, exactly, yeah. I want to ask me about jealous guy, what do you

love about it so much? I can pick a guess, but just this version is like he's one of those kind of tortured artists and you just in this song it's just, it's like there's the liveliness of it, there's the

arrangement of it, there's the heavy beat of it. And we didn't hear his whole, the whole rendition, but he sings the shit out of this song. Oh, I believe it. And it's just heartbreaking. And it's just so beautiful. But also, you know, it's got a driving beat that it's, it ends, you know, it makes, it end up overall feeling up. But it's, it puts you through all of it. I love any song where there is a piano and a driving beat. This tempo. Yeah. has so many right on the back.

It's Benny and the Jets. I was going to say that. I was just looking up when it came out. Yeah, yeah. Because I don't know which came first, but that is one influence the other. They're both 19703. They always work.

Because Benny and the Jets is one of my like primal, perfect, you know, gotta turn it up songs. Andy, what do you think the legacy of Jolene is? Well, I mean,

what I like about it is that it is it is a country song that definitely is drawing from other things but it is a country song and Dolly Parton you're not going to accuse her of being

you know like yeah she has crossover kind of stuff that she's done but she's a country artist and it is showing how malleable country music which does itself no favors in terms of like in terms of being inclusive or saying

come borrow from us after we've borrowed from everything from everything hymns we got Irish and the whole industry shits its pants over Beyonce you know one of the like who can only do good

for country music you know it's I like that that somebody has taken a country song and doing something good with it out in the world and making people appreciate the beauty and the artistry that's involved in country music and forcing the issue too because

by doing this and making people say out loud well this in country, it forces the issue like, what the hell do you think country is? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that gets the cultural dialogue going where people starts to look into it and discover that country has at its roots. It has elements of, I mean, I just wrote a few down here. It's got minstrel songs, Tin Pan Alley, African American blues, it's got church hymns. It's got fiddle and banjo tunes.

It's got German oompa in it. Yeah. It's bringing everything into the mix. You know, for the longest time, you talk to, you know, black people my age would always be like, Do you, is there any kind of music you don't like? Inevitably, the answer was country. Right. But just in the last, you know, bit of time that this album's been out, I've had everybody

from like my big sister to like people who approach me out the street who know this podcast and they're just like, hey, now I'm thinking of country as black music too, which is awesome. And I think that it's anything that gets more people to put into this genre, I think we can support it. And like we said, it's just been this song, Jolene in particular. And by the way, you should point out, not only is Dolly Parton on the album, Willie Nelson's on the album, like, there's some other people involved, but this particular song has been sung and covered and reimagined for about 50 years now. Do you think in another 50 years, is there a chance that this will still be in the psychies? I should think so. I should think so. I do think. The robots might sing it.

I mean, it's hard, you know, I mean, whatever any of that kind of sooth saying means or, you know, but yeah, I should think so. I should. think that if it's, we're talking about it. And we're not talking about it like, because it's on some niche label, you know, that like only the three of us know about it. We're talking about it because it's out there. It's a big song. It's a front and center. Yeah, yeah.

It's been covered hundreds of times across genres across decades. And concurrent with Dolly, you know, Dolly also being out there. She's a treasure. At the Super Bowl. Yeah. At the Super Bowl. Live at the Super Bowl. And a real, you know, doing a.

rock album. Her 49th. Yeah. And it's pretty darn, it's pretty damn good, you know. And I mean, one gets the feeling that it's like kind of a last big burst, you know, because she doesn't have to do it. But she kind of does have to do it. She is a songwriter, a storyteller to her core.

Ever since her mama was telling her stories, those Welsh stories that came down from the, from the, you know, British Isles of a hundred years ago. Yeah, yeah. It is so a part of her DNA to be a storyteller. Why would she ever stop? And also, one of her big things is to give out books. You know, is to like, yeah, she's provided, I mean, like quietly provided literally millions of books to libraries, primarily in the South, but kind of everywhere. That's so moving.

There's so much about her that I love as a human and as a role model. As a human, as a vulnerable human, I think as long as we have this universal theme of vulnerability. And unshamableness. And unshame her. Yes. I think that, I think Jolene will continue to be covered. Andy, we want to play a quick game with you, and I want you to know you're going to be the very first guest to play this game.

All right. Okay. So if it goes horribly wrong, it's on you. It's my fault. We're going to let you go. We're going to retire it. It'll be one and done. It'll be known as getting richtered.

We might use that expression anyway. Okay, the premise of this game is really simple. We'll give you a scenario and you give us one song that you would play during this scenario. Okay. Wow. I hope that makes sense. It'll make you. makes sense, trust me. I'll ask you

to answer these as quickly as possible. Okay. That's the only rule to the game. Okay. It's called, by the way, this game is called What's the name of the game? What's One Song? Great title. What's One Song? Okay. Andy, let's start for the first time ever, What's One Song? Okay. This is a lot of pressure. There's no wrong answer, though. It better be good, Andy.

Yeah, all right. Just has to be funny. Okay. All right, here we go. What's one song you love to sing in the shower? Goldfinger. From James Bond. Goldfinger. Do you change the lyrics? A man with the mightest touch. You just leave a beer, do you like make the lyrics funny?

Is it like a comedy version? You can't improve on Shirley Bassy. It's really tough. All right, what's one song you know every word to? That's not Goldfinger. Right, right. That's not cold finger. Gosh, there's so many of them.

I'm going to say Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Oh, wonderful. What's one song that? makes you want to twerk. Makes me want to twerk. A 40-year-old man wrote this question. Probably maybe soup.

Okay. Salt and Pep, I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, what's one song that makes you cry? Mother by John Lennon. I honestly almost cannot listen to it. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, here's the last question. What's one song that we have to do an episode of One Song On? Oh, wow. Oh, wow. I think somewhere over the rainbow. I bet you there's something pretty interesting Somewhere over the rainbow.

I like that choice. Somewhere over the rainbow. That's a great one. From the Wizard of Oz. MGM. Andy, I'm happy to say you didn't Richter it. You did a great job.

Good job. Yeah. Where to go. Why doesn't it be negative? I think you did Richter it. Good job. Oh, thank you. We keep it positive here.

Wonderful rectoring over there. We have to wrap it up here. But Andy, I just want to thank you so much for coming on and tell our listeners where they can get your podcast. My podcast is everywhere where you get podcasts. Awesome. It's called the three questions. Yeah, it's called the three questions. But it also plays on the Conan Channel,

the Conan O'Brien Radio channel here on Sirius XM. And I will soon be starting up a weekly call-in show on the Conan channel because they're trying to kind of, rather than just a radio station that plays podcasts, they're trying to be, you know, like radio shows that become podcasts. I love that. Yeah, yeah. So I did, you know.

It's the thing I love about. C-SPAN are the calls. Yeah, no, absolutely. And they're like, we want you to do something more. And I was like, what? And they said, call-in show. I was like, okay, yeah, sure, that sounds fun. We'll definitely call into your show.

You got your first two callers right here. Excellent, excellent. We'll be your first two jerky boys. Okay. Oh, no. Oh, no. Luxury help me in this thing. Well, I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, luxury.

And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this has been one song. We will see you next week.