The little-known backstory of Dolly Parton’s Jolene is odd, so who was trying to take her man?!

The world is mourning the loss of legendary singer Dolly Parton, whose countless iconic songs include Jolene, 9 to 5, and Coat of Many Colors.

The solemn news was confirmed on Tuesday, with her nephew admitting in an Instagram video: “I have imagined the heaviness of this moment but haven’t truly felt it until now. It is an honour, an honour that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness.”

Celebrity tributes rolled in from pretty much everyone, from Taylor Swift to Elton John, Miley Cyrus to Sabrina Carpenter.

Dolly’s impactful music has shot up the charts as a result, and it’s got me thinking about the odd yet endearing story behind perhaps her most memorable song, Jolene.

Okay, so who is Jolene in Dolly Parton’s song?

The world has had beef with Jolene since 1973, and it’s practically generational. I might go as far as to say that we naturally distrust Jolenes because of Dolly Parton. Rightly so, the streets say she loves to take a man. 

“[The] song was loosely based on a little bit of truth,” she said during the 2014 Glastonbury Festival. “I wrote that years ago when my husband … was spending a little more time with Jolene than I thought he should be.”

The woman in question, whose name wasn’t actually Jolene, was a bank teller who had a crush on her late husband, Carl Thomas Dean. Tbf to Jolene, he was a looker. 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Dolly Parton (@dollyparton)

Most Read

I was at Bonnie Blue’s g*lden shower event – here’s the gross lowdown of what happened

‘Hot’ man who went viral for arrest video speaks out, and he’s dropping nudes left and right

The Love Is Blind UK season three couples who are still together (and who crashed and burned)

She explained to NPR in 2008: “She got this terrible crush on my husband. And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us — when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”

“She had everything I didn’t, like legs — you know, she was about 6 feet tall. And had all that stuff that some little short, sawed-off honky like me don’t have. So no matter how beautiful a woman might be, you’re always threatened by certain … You’re always threatened by other women, period.”

As for the name, that came later. Rather than name and shame the bank teller in question, Dolly Parton chose the name Jolene after an interaction with a young fan. 

She continued: “One night, I was on stage, and there was this beautiful little girl — she was probably 8 years old at the time.

Nah Dolly Parton was spitting some real real pain on Jolene

— Stormzy (@stormzy) January 13, 2018

“And she had this beautiful red hair, this beautiful skin, these beautiful green eyes, and she was looking up at me, holding, you know, for an autograph. I said, ‘Well, you’re the prettiest little thing I ever saw. So what is your name?’ And she said, ‘Jolene.’ And I said, ‘Jolene. Jolene. Jolene. Jolene.’ I said, ‘That is pretty. That sounds like a song. I’m going to write a song about that.’ ”

I would love to know the identity of that little girl, and how she feels about her iconic place in history. 

For more like this, like The Tab on Facebook.

Featured image credit: Ian Halperin/UPI/Shutterstock