Four months before the release of her 13th album, Dolly Parton released one of the biggest hits of her career, the song Jolene.
Released in 1973, Jolene, the first single and title track of her album, became a No. 1 country hit in both the U.S. and Canada.
The 200-word song was inspired by two real-life experiences; the first was a redhead who really liked her husband, Carl Dean. Parton recalled that once in an interview, she said, “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 kinda 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.””
And the other story was a young fan named Jolene whose name she loved. “One night, I was on stage, and there was this beautiful little girl, she was probably 8 years old at the time. And she had this beautiful red hair, this beautiful skin, these beautiful green eyes, and she was looking up at me, holding, you know, for an autograph. I said, ‘Well, you’re the prettiest little thing I ever saw. So what is your name?’ And she said, ‘Jolene.’ And I said, ‘Jolene. Jolene. Jolene. Jolene.’ I said, ‘That is pretty. That sounds like a song. I’m going to write a song about that.’”
Jolene was ranked No. 63 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and was also crowned the No. 1 greatest country song of all time by the publication in 2024.
During the 2014 Glastonbury Festival, Parton thanked the woman who inspired her to write the song; she said, “I want you folks to know, though, that something good can come from anything. Had it not been for that woman I would never have written ‘Jolene’ and I wouldn’t have made all that money, so thank you, Jolene.”
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