Always calling it exactly how she sees it.
Dolly Parton is opening up about her feelings for Beyoncé’s completely reimagined rendition of Dolly’s country classic “Jolene,” which was included on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album earlier this year.
The new version is rewritten from top to bottom, aside from the “Jolene” part in the chorus, and has an entirely different production, too. The sentiment of Beyoncé’s “Jolene” is much harsher than Dolly’s where she threatens the woman and tells her to back off, rather than begging her like Dolly did.
And in a recent interview with E! News, hosts Justin Sylvester and Keltie Knight had to ask queen Dolly about all the details when it came to how this cover of sorts came to be.
Dolly thought, like many of us through the rumor mill, that Beyoncé was planning to do a standard cover of the song. She was surprised to find out it was quite different but explained that she “loved” what Beyoncé did to it:
“Well, I think it was very bold of her. When they said she was gonna do ‘Jolene’ I was expecting it to be my regular one, but it wasn’t. But I love what she did to it, as a songwriter you love the fact that people do your songs no matter how he do ’em.
But she wasn’t about to let somebody… she wasn’t gonna beg some other woman like I did, [like] ‘Sh*t, get out of here b*tch.'”
Classic.
But the funniest part came when Dolly said she might rewrite “Jolene” from a different perspective now too, and honestly, that would be so iconic though I know nothing will ever compare to her timeless original:
“I might rewrite it Beyoncé style and say okay, enough of you woman. But getting back to the Beyoncé song, I was very proud of her album ‘cuz she did a great job in country music.
I thought it was great, and I was just happy she did ‘Jolene.’ I of course would’ve loved to hear how she would’ve done it in its original way, but of course, its Beyoncé. Her life is different from mine.”
And of course, Justin asked the question that I’ve been wondering for a while now too… did Beyoncé have to fax Dolly to get her to help out with Cowboy Carter? Dolly has a couple speaking parts, and famously only communicates via fax.
But apparently, Dolly does do phone calls from time to time, too, which I imagine has to be in option in 2024, even if you are Dolly Parton:
“We’ve communicated. When the album came out, I was doing some of the little things to put on the album and we were sending each other flowers and little love nots and all that. So yeah, it’s all good.”
She also mentioned she’d love to potentially perform “Jolene” with Beyoncé at the Grammy Awards next year, though I don’t know exactly which version they’d do… stay tuned.
Upon the release of Cowboy Carter in March, Beyoncé set an impressive record when her version of “Jolene” debuted at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming the first version of the song to reach the Top 10.
You can listen to her version here if you haven’t heard it yet:
“Jolene”
