no competition
by
Douglas Messerli
Dolly
Parton (lyricist and composer), Lil Nas X (performer) Jolene / 2021 [3
minutes] [BBC Radio in the Live Lounge / music video]
The
always resilient Dolly Parton recounts how she created this song in her 1988
show. While she was touring on the road in the 1960s, apparently a beautiful bank
teller named Jolene was taking care of her husband, and on her return from
touring she confronted the “red-haired hussy,” the two of them getting involved
in a cat fight in which Jolene pulled off her wig “and nearly beat me to death
with it.” But she won, and “I’ve still got my husband,” she declared back them;
he recently died.
Parton sings this song, according, with a
slight trill of righteousness in the higher octaves, hinting even a little of a
possible yodel of delight as she sings out her plea to please not take her husband
away despite her obvious superior beauty.
Jolene,
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm
begging of you please don't take my man
Jolene,
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Please
don't take him just because you can
Your
beauty is beyond compare
With
flaming locks of auburn hair
With
ivory skin and eyes of emerald green
Your
smile is like a breath of spring
Your
voice is soft like summer rain
And
I cannot compete with you
Jolene
Strangely, it is almost as if Parton were
making love to her enemy instead of challenging her, performing as Parton
generally does as someone far more open and forgiving than most people. It is
what we love about Parton: her honesty and general kindness even in the face of
pure selfishness and cussedness.
Performed just a few years prior to his
highly controversial 2024 music video J Christ, Jolene is perhaps
the perfect counterweight to Lil Nas X’s usually over-the-top choral gay song-and-dance
performances.
Here he stands in a nightclub setting, singing
Parton’s iconic song in which he begs a woman to please not take away his man, which
in his dark burnished baritone and bass notes, invokes a sense of near
hopelessness and despondency.
Lil Nas X has to deal not only with the
beauty of Jolene but the inferred gender difference which, since his man has
chosen a woman over him, almost defeats him almost before he begins his plea.
No trills on the higher registers here, just the rolls of inevitability as he
looks out with his dark brown eyes. He sings the song almost like a dirge at
moments, picking up the tempo only in the second verse, as if he has already
lost his lover, and almost fading into a chocked-up and throbbing throat by the
end of the number. You almost want to cry for the loss to which gay boys have
long grown accustomed.
Parton’s reaction to the man named after
the Mitsubishi Montero revealed, yet again, the great singer’s typical
enthusiasm: “I was so excited when someone told me that Lil Nas X had done my
song ‘Jolene.’ I had to find it and listen to it immediately…and it’s really,
really good. Of course, I love him anyway. I was surprised and I’m honored and
flattered. I hope he does good for both of us.”
Los Angeles, August 16, 2025
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August
2025).
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