Dolly Parton and Kelly Clarkson make a hell of a duo.
And they’re joining forces for a revamped duet version of Dolly’s classic song, “9 to 5”, that’s part of an upcoming documentary about the original film called Still Working 9 to 5.
Produced by Shane McAnally, the track will have a completely new sound and production, and the film’s co-director/producer Gary Lane says they could’ve made an entirely separate one on the rerecording of the song:
“We could do a documentary just on the making of the duet. It almost feels like launching two projects in one.”
Co-director/producer Camille Hardman adds that this version won’t sound much like Dolly’s original (which she wrote using her acrylic nails):
“The first iteration, Dolly’s original version was very upbeat. There was a lot of hope I would say in the song.
And this version is just a little bit melancholic… women are still trying to get equality and it hasn’t happened yet, 42 years after this song was created.”
They had originally asked Dolly to write a completely new song for the upcoming film, but McAnally had the idea to recreate “9 to 5” and came up with a demo that Dolly fell in love with.
Lane says that Kelly’s vocals added a whole new layer to the 1980 hit song that we all know and love:
“Dolly actually called it ‘9 to 5: The Slow Version’. It’s definitely slowed down and more haunting. Kelly — you can’t believe how she changes it, too. It’s really mind blowing.”
Steve Summers, Dolly’s creative director and an executive producer on the film, said he couldn’t believe how they were able to give such an iconic song an entirely new life with a new message so many decades later:
“I’ve probably heard that song a thousand times, and I really never heard the words to the song till I heard them right there.”
Of course, we’ve shared plenty of Kelly’s knockout classic country covers from her show, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what these two badass ladies have come up with.
The film will premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March, and the song has a tentative public release date for sometime in May.
You can check out the trailer for the documentary here:
Kelly actually remade the original music video for the premiere of The Kelly Clarkson Show back in 2019:
