FEATURE:
Between the Rust Belt and the Righteous
IN THIS PHOTO: Dolly Parton in 2020/PHOTO CREDIT: Miller Mobley for Billboard
Looking Ahead to Rockstar, and Why Dolly Parton Is As Admired As She Has Ever Been
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BECAUSE Dolly Parton…
IN THIS IMAGE: The artwork for Dolly Parton’s single, World on Fire (taken from upcoming album, Rockstar)/PHOTO CREDIT: Vijat Mohindra
has recently been in the U.K. and has been discussing her upcoming forty-ninth studio album, Rockstar, I wanted to write about her. Arriving on 17th November, we have a way to go yet. The title is what you would except: an artist more renowned for Country is stepping into Rock and, in the process, collaborating with some musical guests in this vast thirty-track album. Most of the songs on Rockstar are covers but the first two, Rockstar and World on Fire, are written by Parton. This brings me to a point I want to end with. Also, on the album, Parton writes Bygone, My Blues Tears and I Dreamed About Elvis. In total, there are nine original and twenty-one covers. The recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee will unveil her latest album in November. It will be a treat. I want to pick up on an article that The Guardian recently published. It relates to Parton’s fanbase. She is a strong artist who will speak up when needed. She is a philanthropist and much-loved human who always does what’s right. In spite of this, she has not isolated and alienated a core of her American fanbase who are more conservative and might balk at someone who has strong views on the thorny issue of gay rights, for example. Parton is, regardless of how right her views are (as in correct, not right-wing), she can unite people. There are very few who have a bad word to say about her. This is something that should be celebrated and highlighted. How many other artists have that ability to unite polemic views and diverse groups of people?! Maybe Taylor Swift or Paul McCartney. Not that many leap to mind. Dolly Parton, as I said, speaks up for what is right. It is her humanity, heart and wit that makes her so endearing. Regardless of your gender, music tastes, sexual orientation, or political views, she brings everyone together!
It is clear that she wants her legacy to be her music. Someone who is not keen on bring kept alive by form of a hologram, Parton is giving everything she can now! I am not sure what will happen when she leaves us. Artists she has inspired will follow her, but Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and her countless good deeds will live on. I will end with a point about bringing the more political into the music world. Before that, The Observer wrote about a star who united Rock with Country…and left (wing) with right:
“At 77, Dolly Parton is justly being celebrated, along with her more established virtues, for an ability to unite disparate groups. She has, it’s claimed, an equally strong fanbase in the Trumpian “Rust Belt” as among the gay clubbers of New York City, to pick two of America’s polarised stereotypes.
Her London visit to promote a new rock-influenced double album and a book is proving just how broad that Parton cultural spectrum is. Gathered in a grand hotel last week to cheer her on and, ostensibly at least, to ask some searching questions, her admirers included a contingent of social media “influencers” in their 20s, dressed in tank tops, UK charity-shop shabby chic and man-buns. Alongside them sat hoary representatives of the British music press, some of them diehard country-music listeners.
The lyrics of her new single, World on Fire, go about as far as we can hope towards a didactic intervention from Dolly. “What you gonna do when it all burns down? Still got time to turn it around,” she sings, flanked by flames and heaving dancers in the video. It is a clarion call for action, but what action is harder to tell.
“I have feelings about the shape the world is in. We should all do better because this is the only world we have got,” she has said. Yet Parton also claims the lyrics don’t refer to the political situation “because I’m not political at all – I have feelings about things and I wanna make people think, not make any major statements.”
Asked if the song was possibly a more literal comment on climate change, Parton swiftly broadened things out again. “I felt led to do it. I think it’s all crazy. It’s no more about climate than it is about hate, about greed, about lack of acceptance and lack of love. Or about lack of trying. That’s what gets me.”
Perhaps her most dexterous move came when she somehow dispelled the notion she is a campaigner, while also confirming it: “I don’t carry signs,” she said. “I’m not an activist. I’m not a feminist – and yet I am all of that.” What really worries her, she added, is the thought of “all the other civilisations that have got too big for their boots and destroyed themselves”. Boots again.
But this is serious stuff and Parton is walking a tightrope, with or without those boots. It’s something she is practised at, balancing her longstanding support for gay rights with her traditional religious convictions. This woman, performing since she was a poor teenager straight from a cabin in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, has total stage discipline. Any apparent vagueness on matters of policy is calculated, as she repeatedly evangelises about the importance of caring and of being true to yourself. It is not so much that she fears alienating part of her international audience, but that she desperately wants to get things done. Division, she clearly holds, is the devil’s work”.
This was largely a general nod and salute to Dolly Parton ahead of her forty-ninth album coming out in November. It makes me wonder whether she has anything epic or memorable coming for album number fifty! The way that she has that unifying spirit. Maybe old-fashioned and unfamiliar today, Parton provides nothing but kindness and inspiration. She is rightly seen as a music legend, though I think that her benevolence and philanthropic nature should be talked about as much. Not just in her charity endeavours. You also have this person who speaks to and resonates with so many different groups. One other hugely impressive and important thing about Parton is that her songwriting reacts to world situations and huge themes. One of Rockstar’s singles, World on Fire, can be seen as a reaction to climate change. I recently wrote how not many artists are discussing subjects such as abortion and trans rights, climate change, gun violence or right-wing extremism. I know that there is a degree of commercial and personal risk if artists, in a sense, put their heads above the parapet. Even though they are highlighting issues and not necessarily taking a political stance, there might be this safety issue if they divide people. Although Parton is beloved, she could always rub some people up the wrong way. You only need to hear the lyrics to World on Fire to realise that Parton is concerned about the plight of the planet: “Now I ain't one for speaking out much/But that don't mean I don't stay in touch/Everybody's trippin' over this or that/What we gonna do when we all fall flat?/Liar, liar the world's on fire/What we gonna do when it all burns down?/I don't know what to think about us/When did we lose in God we trust/God Almighty, what we gonna do/If God ain't listenin' and we're deaf too”. It is crucial now more than ever that artists address climate change and its devastating possibilities. If it explicitly brought up or clear enough from context, Parton is someone who uses her voice to speak up and out – even though, as she wrote for World on Fire, she does not do it all that often. After decades in the industry, she is still one of our most important artists. Rockstar is an album that sees Parton stepping into new musical territory. Always innovating and keeping fresh, Parton has lost none of her power and prominence. It clear that everyone around the world will…
ALWAYS love her.