A lot has been said about Beyoncé’s new Cowboy Carter album, and even more about her decision to put her own spin on the classic Dolly Parton single, “Jolene.”
It’s not the first time a modern artist has covered the song and it likely won’t be the last. The controversy, then, lies in how the Grammy Award-winning singer chose to change the meaning.
Fans call it a triumph, insisting it’s an example of Beyoncé refusing to play the victim to a would-be man stealer. Others claim the vulnerability was the point of the song. These critics can’t help but question: if Beyonce didn’t agree with the central message in “Jolene,” why didn’t she just write a new song?
This seems like a silly question in today’s era of remakes, reboots, and never-ending franchises. True originality is a rare commodity in the music industry, but for someone with as many accolades and devotees as Beyoncé, one could argue that there isn’t a better place for it to come from. The “Single Ladies” singer didn’t have to worry about dealing with a woman with “flaming locks of auburn hair” when fans have been talking about “Becky with the good hair” since 2016.
The original “Jolene” was written and recorded by Parton in 1973. It was named Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 greatest songs of all time and has been covered by many artists over the years with varying degrees of success. The single was nominated for the Grammy Awards for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in both 1975 and 1976.
Richard E. Aaron/Redferns
Parton said the song was inspired by a red-headed bank employee who flirted with her husband, Carl Dean, when they were first married. She took the name “Jolene” from a fan encounter. Throughout the lyrics, Parton pleads with a beautiful woman not to “steal her man” just because “she can.”
“You could have your choice of men/but I will never love again,” Parton pleads.
The main criticism with Beyoncé’s cover is how she changes the entire meaning from vulnerability to aggression. The newest version’s main character doesn’t plead with Jolene, but rather threatens her with harm if she tried to steal away the man in question.
“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene/I’m warning you, don’t come for my man/Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene/Don’t take the chance because you think you can,” Beyoncé sings in the intro.
And while the “Crazy In Love” singer concedes that her competition has “beauty beyond compare,” she still claims that’s not enough to persuade her man away. “Takes more than beauty and seductive stares/To come between a family and a happy man,” Beyoncé’s lyrics say. “Jolene, I’m a woman too/Thе games you play are nothing new/So you don’t want no hеat with me, Jolene.”
Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartRadio
Meanwhile, Parton admits in her version that her man is being tempted to stray. “He talks about you in his sleep/And there’s nothin’ I can do to keep/From cryin’ when he calls your name, Jolene,” Parton’s version says. “And I can easily understand/How you could easily take my man/But you don’t know what he means to me, Jolene.”
Beyoncé tells her rival things aren’t so simple. “We’ve been deep in love for 20 years/I raised that man, I raised his kids/I know my man better than he knows himself (what),” she sings. “I can easily understand why you’re attracted to my man/But you don’t want this smoke, so shoot your shot with someone else (you heard me).”
Later, Beyoncé calls herself a “queen” and issues her final warning. “I’m still a Creole banjee b*tch from Louisianne (don’t try me)/There’s a thousand girls in every room/That act as desperate as you do/You a bird, go on and sing your tune, Jolene (what),” she sings. “I had to have this talk with you/‘Cause I hate to have to act a fool/Your peace depends on how you move, Jolene.”
Even though the whole meaning of the song is changed with Beyoncé’s version, Parton has been publicly supportive. She said as much on Instagram on March 29, the same day as “Cowboy Carter” was released. “Wow, I just heard Jolene. Beyoncé is giving that girl some trouble and she deserves it!” the country music legend wrote.
— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) March 29, 2024
Mainstream critics mostly saw the “Jolene” cover as harmless but forgettable. The Washington Post reviewer described the single as a “lower-hanging tribute” while Rolling Stone said it was “cheeky and humorous … even if it doesn’t add much.”
Slate critic Carl Wilson addressed the most obvious criticism, saying that removing the pleading and insecurity kills the essence of the message.
“Why do ‘Jolene’ if you’re going to remove the most unique and powerful element of the song, that the narrator is baring her vulnerability and asking the mercy of her rival? That’s something that a post-Lemonade Beyoncé could never do, so she reduces it to a generic boast track about the greatness of her own marriage,” he wrote.
Daily Wire podcast hosts had similar problems with Beyoncé’s version of “Jolene.” As Matt Walsh said on his April 1 show, “What makes this song unique and interesting, which has caused it to resonate over the five decades since it’s been made, is the vulnerability, and the heartbreak, and the longing in the lyrics and the performance.”
He described the woman in Parton’s song as “insecure, fearful” and “desperately in love with a man who she believes she cannot afford to lose.”
Walsh said the insecurity of the main character in Parton’s song is what makes her so relatable. The fact that Beyoncé chose to strip it away made the song demonstrably worse.
“Just when you think that Beyoncé might be growing ever so slightly as an artist and a person, she proves you wrong,” the podcast host added. “It turns out she has taken this song full of pain and yearning and emotional honesty and turned it into yet another mediocre girl boss anthem. She has, in other words, taken everything that makes the song great and replaced it with everything that makes modern pop music terrible.”
Walsh goes on to argue that if the beautiful woman in the song isn’t a worry because Beyoncé is such a perfect, incomparable queen, then the tension and longing in the song is gone, rendering the whole message emotionless and pointless.
Daily Wire host Michael Knowles went even deeper, saying that Beyoncé’s “Jolene” was a statement on how modern society views marriage, divorce, and starting over after two decades of marriage.
“Women have a special power,” Knowles says. “They have a seductive power to them. That’s real. You gotta be on guard, if you’re the wife, if you’re Dolly Parton, or if you’re the husband. We deny all this though. We deny it at our peril. Is it any wonder that the thing that’s supposed to be protected, the marriage, the family, is falling apart?”