New Delhi, Aug. 30 -- Dolly Parton, the country superstar, died on August 25 in Nashville after a brief battle with cancer. Although Parton had belted out many hits, 'Jolene' still remains etched in the memory of music lovers. There is something unsettling about 'Jolene', even though it is one of the most beautiful and enduring songs Dolly Parton ever wrote.

The song, unlike 'I Will Survive' by Gloria Gaynor, showed that female pop singers were still battling with their identity as independent women. Like 'I Will Survive', the woman was happy to show the door to an ungrateful man; the woman in 'Jolene' was literally begging 'the other woman' to leave her man while admitting that she is not as beautiful as her.

We all know the story behind the song. Parton had explained that 'Jolene', released in 1973, was inspired by a red-haired bank teller whom she saw flirting with her husband, Carl Dean. Parton, as the song goes, found the woman more beautiful in every sense of the word. In the song, Parton describes every feature of the woman:

"Your beauty is beyond compare

With flaming locks of auburn hair

With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green

Your smile is like a breath of spring

Your skin is soft like summer rain."

And she literally fell at her feet to leave her man. It's interesting to know that she and Carl remained married for nearly 60 years, from 1966 until his death in March 2025.

Was she not sure of Carl's love or like any other woman, did she feel insecure and vulnerable seeing a woman younger and more beautiful than her? The song depicts the vulnerability of a woman trying to keep her husband. She is not strong enough to challenge the woman or tell her husband that if he falls for her, she will slam the door on him.

Many female writers saw the song as 'anti-feminist' and disliked the idea of begging another woman not to steal her man. But the answer came from Beyonce when she turned the lyrics of 'Jolene' upside down. Beyonce, instead of begging or pleading, warned the woman by saying:

"Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I'm warnin' you, don't come for my man (Jolene)

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

Don't take the chance because you think you can."

Parton publicly praised Beyonce's bold, confrontational reimagining of 'Jolene' on the 2024 album 'Cowboy Carter', saying "Beyonce is giving that girl some trouble and she deserves it."

In sharp contrast to Beyonce's version, Parton shows herself powerless in front of the other woman. Instead of asking her husband to keep away from that woman, she is pleading with her to show restraint. On the other side, Beyonce is so confident that she calls herself queen and is at the same time sure of her husband's love when she says:

"I know my man better than he knows himself (Yeah, what?)

I can easily understand

Why you're attracted to my man?

But you don't want this smoke, so shoot your shot with someone else (You heard me)."

The irony becomes even sharper when we remember who Dolly Parton herself was. She was hardly a woman without agency. She became one of the most successful female songwriters and performers in a male-dominated Nashville music industry. Yet in 'Jolene', she enters the mind of a woman who feels powerless precisely because another woman is more beautiful.

Many years later, Elizabeth Gilbert in her book 'All the Way to the River: Love, Loss and Liberation' questioned this extreme codependency as depicted in 'Jolene'. Gilbert argues that a woman's happiness should never be entirely at the mercy of someone else's actions as in the song.

In hindsight, we can analyse 'Jolene' threadbare, but we do not know the mental makeup of Parton at the time she wrote it. Was she expressing her own insecurity and vulnerability or was she depicting the reality of a section of women who were still conditioned to be submissive in relationships?

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.