Much Love, Dolly Parton

So I've been on a bit of a Dolly Parton kick lately. I think it started with this article on Jezebel about how Dolly Parton seemed impervious to the fashion police. Which is totally true. It's not that Dolly isn't tacky--she owns that tackiness and makes it part of her image.

I've always loved Dolly Parton. My childhood Christmases are marked by Power Rangers toys and that immortal Dolly Parton-Kenny Rodgers hit, "I'll Be Home With Bells On." Which my brother and I listened to on my mom's record player. Nice, I know. And if we were listening to records, we always had to break out that other awesome classic, "We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel. Okay, not very Christmassy, but it is what it is. Anyways, my point is that I've always thought Dolly was awesome, and the appreciation started early.

Warning: What is about to follow makes my childhood sound sketch. I can assure you it wasn't.

So my favorite movie as a little kid was Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I must have seen that movie at least 50 times. TO BE FAIR TO MY MOTHER, we thought the movie was called "Chicken Ranch" and we were watching the tv-edited version that my mom had recorded. When I finally saw the original version of the movie when I was about 13 or 14, I turned to her, completely bewildered that she had let me and my brothers watch this movie. Repeatedly. Her response: "YOU LIKED THE SONGS, OKAY? YOU HAD NO IDEA WHAT THIS MOVIE WAS ABOUT!!!"

Okay, we really didn't, that's true. But now that I'm older and wiser and do know what the movie is about, it's entirely possible that I love it EVEN MORE.

Why, you ask? Well, first of all, the music really is amazing. And second of all, IT'S A MUSICAL THAT TAKES PLACE IN A WHOREHOUSE AND BURT REYNOLDS IS A COWBOY WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED FROM A MOVIE.

I digress.

But now that I'm getting into Dolly's music for real, I'm starting to develop a whole new appreciation for her.

Take the song "Jolene," which, to be honest, I first heard on Glee. DON'T BE HATIN. But as I listen to Dolly's version, I can see what a complex song it is. This is a song about a girl who has some serious self esteem issues and knows it. And she knows that her man could leave her at any time, so she's begging this tramp Jolene to not stir the pot. And ostensibly, this makes this girl sound like a total schmuck, but the way Dolly sings it, you can really hear the desperation in her voice and know that she's barely holding it together. It's a song about a vulnerable time in someone's life, and I think we can all relate to being that desperate.

And then, of course, there's Dolly's most well-known song, "I Will Always Love You." I never really liked the Whitney version. Too 90s-power-ballad for me. But hearing Dolly sing it just breathes a whole new life into the song. Whitney sings it with such fierce determination, like this man was the love of her life and she's letting him know it; baring her soul for the world to see. More often than not, this song is used to show the connection between two people.

But the song is just as much about disconnect as it is about connection. It's far more introspective than Whitney's version suggests. Dolly's version gets this. Her singing is much more thoughtful, as if she's singing more to herself than the ex-lover. She's telling herself those things as much as she's telling him. It's quite deep, actually.

Anyways, that's my little geek-out about Dolly Parton for you. She is awesome. That is all.