Jolene (song)
| Jolene | |
|---|---|
| Dolly Parton | |
| publication | October 1973 |
| length | 2:41 |
| Genre (s) | Country music |
| Author (s) | Dolly Parton |
| Publisher (s) | RCA |
| Award (s) | 2 Grammy nominations (1975, 1976) Grammy (2017) |
| album | Jolene |
| Cover versions | |
| 1985 | Strawberry Switchblade |
| 2004 | The White Stripes |
| 2015 | The BossHoss ft. The Common Linnets |
| 2016 | Pentatonix ft. Dolly Parton |
Jolene is a Country - Song of the US singer Dolly Parton . The piece was released in advance as a single in October 1973 and on the album of the same name in February 1974 . The text is about a woman's request to a rival not to steal her husband.
Dolly Parton achieved with Jolene not only placements in the general single charts and number one successes in the country charts of the USA and Canada, but also positions in the charts of several European countries. In addition, she was nominated twice for a Grammy Award for the song . On the list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time published by the music magazine Rolling Stone in 2004 , the song, of which several successful cover versions were released, ranked 217.
Text and music
In the text, the Lyrische Ich describes the desperate but dignified request to another woman by the name of Jolene not to take her husband away from her ("[…] I'm begging of you please don't take my man […]") . She refers to their incomparable beauty (“[…] Your beauty is beyond compare […]”), describes the color of hair, skin and eyes as well as Jolene's smile and voice in the form of lyrical comparisons, and confesses one that she cannot measure herself against her ("[...] And I cannot compete with you, Jolene [...]").
In addition, she shows what her husband means for her ("[...] But I could never love again, he's the only one for me, Jolene [...]"), and at the end of the song she makes her further fate of Jolene's decision dependent ("[...] My happiness depends on you, and whatever you decide to do, Jolene [...]"). It remains to be seen how Jolene behaves and what further course the protagonist's life and relationship will take with it. Within country music, the song can be assigned to the tradition of cheatin 'songs , which have adultery and similar topics as their content.
History of origin
According to Parton, she was inspired to write the song when she realized that her husband found an employee at his bank attractive and therefore apparently visited the bank more often than necessary. She chose the title after a girl asked for an autograph after a concert and she liked the girl's name, Jolene. The song was recorded on May 22, 1973 at RCA Studio B of Radio Corporation of America in Nashville .
Chart placements
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In the United States , Dolly Parton was with Jolene in 1974 for a total of eight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 ; the best ranking during this period was ranked 60th on March 2, 1974. In the Billboard Hot Country Songs, the title reached number 1 on February 2, 1974. In Canada , Jolene ranked 84th in the RPM Top Singles on March 2, 1974, in which the song was able to place for a total of six weeks. It also reached number 1 on the country singles charts published by the music magazine RPM on February 16, 1974.
The song was also featured in the charts in various European countries. On July 19, 1976, the title was seventh in the UK Singles Charts , in which it was represented for twelve weeks in 1976. In Ireland the song reached eighth place in the charts as the best position in six weeks in the same year. In Sweden , Jolene was in the charts for three weeks in 2008, with rank 16 on June 19, 2008 as the best position; In Denmark , the song took 19th place on March 26, 2010 as the highest position in two weeks of chart placement.
Awards
Jolene was nominated in the USA in 1975 in the original version and in 1976 in a live recording for a Grammy Award in the category "Best Female Country Vocal Performance". The collecting society BMI bestowed a BMI Award in each of the categories Pop and Country in 1974 and a Million Air Award in 1990 for more than one million broadcasts on the radio.
Dolly Parton received a Songwriter Achievement Award for Jolene from the Nashville Songwriters Association International in both 1974 and 1975. In Great Britain the title won the 1976 Country Music Award in the “Single of the Year” category. In 2004, the music magazine Rolling Stone voted the song 217 on its list of The 500 Best Songs of All Time . A cover version of the song by the a cappella band Pentatonix together with Dolly Parton won the 2017 Grammy in the category “Best Country Duo / Group Performance”.
Cover versions
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By Jolene published cover versions of different musicians from different musical genres. The Anglo-Australian singer Olivia Newton-John published her own version of the song as early as 1976 , further versions appeared among others in 1985 by the Scottish indie pop band Strawberry Switchblade , in 2001 by the Australian singer Sherrié Austin , and in 2004 by the American Garage-Rock -Band The White Stripes , in 2006 by the American punk rock band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and in 2008 by the British singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor as part of the soundtrack for the British television series Beautiful People . In the UK single charts, the Strawberry Switchblade version reached 53rd place on October 5, 1985 and the White Stripes version reached 16th place on November 27, 2004 in a live recording.
The British band The Sisters of Mercy played Jolene often during their concerts. In 2015, a cover version of BossHoss and the Common Linnets was created , which appeared on the Dos Bros album. Hoss Power , singer and guitarist of the band, described the original as a "world hit for the ages that you really can't do better". The a cappella band Pentatonix released a cover version together with Dolly Parton in September 2016, which reached chart placements in several countries, including number 18 in the Billboard Hot Country Songs , number 84 in the Canadian Hot 100 and number 8 92 on the Australian music charts .
The coverinfo.de portal lists the best-known cover versions with almost three dozen entries. Apple's iTunes Store offered several hundred versions in the spring of 2013, although there were numerous duplications. Stylistically, the spectrum of recorded cover versions ranges from psychobilly to classic country and bluegrass ( Alison Krauss , Rhonda Vincent ) to electronic music .
In addition to well-known, numerous lesser-known artists and bands added the piece to their repertoire: the German street folk duo Gee Gee & Soluna or the women's country band Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, which is a project by actress Jasmin Tabatabai . Another version comes from the German actress Heike Makatsch ; James Last played an instrumental version with his orchestra. Stylistically, the vast majority of the cover versions are based on the given framework of the traditional country-folk ballad, and most of these versions come from female singers.
In addition to the original version, there are several live recordings of Dolly Parton, for example on the CD Live in London , as well as in a duet with other artists, for example at a live performance on the occasion of American Independence Day in July 2010 with her goddaughter Miley Cyrus . During the 2011 Grammy Awards , Norah Jones , John Mayer and Keith Urban played a cover version of Jolene in honor of Dolly Parton, who received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for her life's work at the event .
The British singer-songwriter and punk musician Kirsty MacColl recorded a rather sarcastic and critical adaptation of the song . MacColl had re-composed the music and lyrics for the song Caroline . In an interview, however, she admitted that she deliberately designed the song, which sounds quite similar in terms of melody and tempo, as a response song to Jolene .
Literature and film
The American writer and publicist EL Doctorow wrote the short story Jolene: A Life , inspired by the song . It is about a young woman in trouble and was published in The New Yorker magazine in 2002 . Two years later, the tale appeared with four other stories in his volume Sweet Land Stories . In 2008, based on this template, the independent film Jolene by Dan Ireland was made with Jessica Chastain in the title role.
swell
- ^ A b Cecelia Tichi: High Lonesome: The American Culture of Country Music. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1994, ISBN 0-8078-4608-2 , p. 11
- ↑ a b Dolly Parton. In: Bill DeMain: In Their Own Words: Songwriters Talk About The Creative Process. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport 2004, ISBN 0-275-98402-8 , pp. 29-38 (especially p. 32)
- ↑ Charts UK Charts US
- ^ Billboard.com: Jolene - Dolly Parton
- ^ Joel Whitburn: Hot Country Songs 1944 to 2008. Record Research, Inc, Menomonee Falls 2008, ISBN 0-89820-177-2 , p. 656
- ↑ Library and Archives Canada: RPM Top Singles - Volume 21, No. 3, March 02 1974 ( Memento of the original from March 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Library and Archives Canada: RPM Country Singles - Volume 21, No. 1, February 16 1974 ( Memento of the original from March 26, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Chart Archive: Dolly Parton - Jolene
- ^ The Irish Charts - Search the Charts
- ↑ SwedishCharts.com: Dolly Parton - Jolene (Song)
- ↑ DanishCharts.com: Dolly Parton - Jolene (Song)
- ↑ Stephen Miller: Smart Blonde: Dolly Parton. Omnibus Press, London and New York 2008, ISBN 1-84609-760-6 , p. 217
- ^ A b Nancy Cardwell: The Words and Music of Dolly Parton: Getting to Know Country´s "Iron Butterfly" . ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2011, ISBN 0-313-37804-5 , pp. 152/153
- ↑ Industry-Oriented Event Termed Success In UK In: Billboard . Volume 88, No. 47, November 20, 1976. Nielsen Business Media, p. 53, ISSN 0006-2510
- ↑ The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In: Rolling Stone . Issue 963 (special edition). Released December 9, 2004
- ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts CA
- ↑ Chart Archive: Strawberry Switchblade - Jolene
- ↑ Chart Archive: The White Stripes - Jolene - Live Under Blackpool Lights
- ↑ Dirk Neuhaus: The BossHoss feat. The Common Linnets - Jolene Published on Country.de on November 27, 2015
- ↑ Coverinfo.de , accessed on May 9, 2013 (title must be entered in the search mask)
- ↑ Wendy Geller: Miley Cyrus Joins Dolly Parton Onstage For Playful Duet Published by: Yahoo! Music on July 6, 2010
- ↑ Claire Suddath: Norah Jones, John Mayer and Keith Urban; 'Jolene' - Best and Worst of the 2011 Grammys Published by: TIME.com on February 14, 2011
- ↑ Kirsty MacColl. Singer, songwriter . Entry for Kirsty MacColl on encyclopedia.com. Accessed September 20, 2013
- ↑ Robert Dimery (Ed.): 1001 Songs You Should Hear Before Life Is Over . Edition Olms, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-283-01153-6 , p. 322
- ↑ Jolene: A Life by EL Doctorow December 23, 2002
