Happy Monday, y’all.
Today for the Song of the Week, we have a tune called “Dumb Blonde” by the one and only Dolly Parton.
Written by Curly Putman for Dolly, it was released as a single in 1966 and later included on her 1967 debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly. It became her first first song to chart on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, peaking at #24 later that year.
At the time the song was released, celebrities like Marilyn Monroe had taken the world by storm for their stunning beauty and platinum hair, but were often cast as “dumb blondes” and depicted as women with no brains and not much to show for themselves other than their looks.
Dolly came out swinging with a single like this at the beginning stages of her career, making the statement early on that she was no ditz, and like she often says now, it’s mainly because she knows she isn’t dumb, and she also knows she isn’t really blonde…
I think these lines pretty much sum Dolly up:
“Just because I’m blonde
Don’t think I’m dumb
Cause this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool”
As she’s proven countless time over the course of her career, she’s an incredible artist and musician, in addition to being a businesswoman and philanthropist who devotes as much time and resources as she can to helping people and making the world a better place.
I’m not going to pretend like I’ve never related to the song just a little bit, but hey, blondes have more fun, right? And similar to Dolly, at the end of the day, I know I’m not dumb, and I also know I’m not blonde…
One of my favorite live performances of Dolly’s comes from back in 1967, when she sang the song on the Bobby Lord Show when she was just 21 years old:
The studio version:
