Returning to Dolly

Abstract Dolly has performed “Jolene” numerous times, usually sticking close to her original recording. She has also refashioned the song several times. She re-recorded “Jolene” for her album Something Special, which provides an excellent study of the ways Dolly keeps her standards fresh. She embraced an orchestral sound for the soundtrack for the film Dumplin’. This all-strings arrangement is modeled on “Eleanor Rigby.” Dolly’s comments about the old-world resonances of this arrangement suggest that she believes its style is adjacent to her other music: it draws on the influences that she claims shape much of her music while moving into new territory. Dolly also dramatized “Jolene” in a television series. There she explored the relationship between the narrator and Jolene. The episode weaves in several issues raised in the book: the homoerotic reading of the dynamic between the two women and the question of what Jolene will decide.