Which Actually Got Me Brandi Carlile? - Tumblr Posts

Watching Melissa Etheridge and Dolly Parton sing “Jolene” - with plenty of longing, lord! - after reading this gave me chills. 

I’ve always loved dolly parton’s Jolene and I finally realized why

the song isn’t about a woman terrified of losing her husband to another, more beautiful woman

the song is about a woman transfixed with desire for a red haired woman named Jolene whose voice is “soft like summer rain”

and the only way she can voice that desire is through a plaintive entreaty not to “steal her man”

an entreaty during which “the man” is never described, while line after line praises Jolene’s beauty and allure

and in which the singer admits to Jolene “my happiness depends on you” and “I could never love again”

it doesn’t matter that after each stanza on Jolene the singer quickly inserts a hetero relationship

because it’s all there in the song, and how it’s not called Don’t Leave Me [insert generic man name] or Don’t Take my Man

it’s called Jolene

and you can’t sing it without lingering yearningly on her name over and over again

Jolene…Jolene…Jolene

what ultimately terrifies the singer is not her man leaving her for Jolene

but what happens after the man has left

and she still can’t stop singing about Jolene

what happens when there’s no tenuous hetero relationship in place which can cloak her very real, very queer desire

for a woman whose “beauty is beyond compare”