Jolene - Dolly Parton
Jolene is a song originally written and performed by Dolly Parton for her album Jolene (1974). The song was covered by not less than 30 artists including the White Stripes and Anneke van Giersbergen.
Who was Jolene? Why she become such a major threat?
In an interview with NPR Dolly said "One night I was on stage, and there was this beautiful little girl. She was probably eight years old at the time. And she had this beautiful red hair, this beautiful skin, and beautiful green eyes. And she was looking up at me, holding, you know, for an autograph. And I said, well, you're just the prettiest little thing I've ever seen. I said, what is your name? And she said, Jolene. And I said, well, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene. I said, that is pretty, I said, that sounds like a song. I'm going to write a song about that."
The story for her song inspired from a bank teller who was giving Dolly's new husband a little more interest than he had coming. "She got this terrible crush on my husband. And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kind of like a running joke between us when I was saying, hell, you're spending a lot of time at the bank. I don't believe we've got that kind of money. So it's really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one." Dolly said.
With simple chord progression and simple lyrics repeated over and over again the song is quite memorable. Dolly Parton says "Jolene" is so popular because everyone can relate to her feelings of inadequacy, competing with that tall redhead in the bank who was after Dolly's husband.