Sad Ass Songs

Dolly Parton's America

This episode explores how Dolly Parton embodies a unifying force in American culture, particularly during divisive times like the 2016 election. Through personal

Key takeaways

• Dolly Parton's global Q score shows she is among the most beloved figures with minimal negative sentiment, suggesting widespread cultural appeal.

Main topics

• Dolly Parton's cultural influence during political turmoil
• The role of music in creating inclusive public spaces

Notable quotes

"Being born was the worst mistake I ever made. The doctor didn't spank me, he just slapped me in the face."

Conclusion

Dolly Parton's America is not just a nostalgic or comedic space—it's a living, breathing vision of unity and

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) What is Dolly Parton's America? Speaker 8 (0:03) Well, Dolly Parton's America would be the same as Dolly Parton's world. Speaker 6 (0:10) Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad. Let me explain how I got here to a podcast about Dolly Parton. I grew up in Tennessee, which means I grew up in... Dolly Speaker 8 (0:22) Parton's world. Speaker 6 (0:23) Dolly's world. She was everywhere. She was looking down at you from billboards, coming out of car radio, she was on commercials, she just... Speaker 6 (0:34) infused the air. So as a consequence, I didn't really think about her a lot. It's a little bit like that joke, one fish says to another fish, how's the water today? And the other fish says, what's water? I was that second fish. She'd created this world, and I was just swimming through it. But then, a few things happened. 2016, I'm living in New York. Dolly is on tour. And she comes and does a stadium show here in Flushing, Queens. Speaker 6 (1:12) And just the level of excitement of people around me was like otherworldly. Speaker 6 (1:23) Everybody around me was like, Dolly Parton is a goddess. She's a saint. To me, Dolly is a superstar who brings Speaker 5 (1:30) herself to the level of the people. Speaker 6 (1:32) I was like, whoa, I missed this. Speaker 5 (1:35) So I was sitting in my home office. I was on Twitter. Speaker 6 (1:39) Writer Sarah Smarsh told me that her whoa moment came around the same time when she was in Austin, online, watching people live tweet. That same Dolly show. The Speaker 5 (1:48) people who were tweeting were all women, and one woman in particular. She said, that majestic bitch just started playing a goddamn pan flute. Speaker 7 (1:59) That's Speaker 5 (1:59) the best tweet. Pan flute was in all caps, which seemed important. Speaker 6 (2:06) And all this was happening, the pan flute, the tweeting, the touring, at exactly the moment when the 2016 election was turning very ugly. The racist, Speaker 2 (2:15) sexist, homophobic, xenophobic. How do you lie to the FBI? And now you're running for president. Speaker 6 (2:23) Like she toured right through all of that noise, through the general election and beyond. And I kept bumping into people who would describe the experience of being at a Dolly show as like standing in an alternate. vision of America than what was unfolding on the TV. I Speaker 1 (2:38) remember just standing out in the lobby. Speaker 1 (2:43) and just people watching because it was the most diverse place I've ever been. I was seeing a multiracial audience, people wearing cowboy hats and boots. I was seeing people in drag, church ladies, lesbians holding hands, little girls who were there with their families. You had a whole audience of people who were absolutely there. philosophies were in opposition to each other. Co-mingling and everybody is polite to each other. Speaker 6 (3:20) So that was one thing that caught my attention. That in this very divided moment, Dolly seems to maybe be a kind of unifier. And after doing a little poking around, the data does kind of bear this out. If you look at her global Q score, this is a measure of how well people think about your brand globally. What they do is they assemble a very diverse sample of people. They ask him a bunch of questions. And out of all of these different brands that are out there, all these different performers, she is in the top 10 globally in terms of everybody's favorites. But she's almost number one when it comes to lack of negatives, if that makes any sense. Like people have the least amount of negative things to say about Dolly Parton than anyone besides maybe Adele. And by the way, this Q score data is fascinating. I haven't dug into it too much, so I can't claim to fully understand it, but Beyonce, number 52. What? Lady Gaga, number 41. Wild. Anyhow, the second thing that happened that made this series possible, I'll be honest with you guys, was a strange twist of fate. Speaker 2 (4:29) Dolly Parton suffered a few minor injuries in a car crash. The accident happened just after noon in Nashville on Monday. Speaker 6 (4:37) 2013, Dolly gets into a minor car accident, ends up at Vanderbilt Hospital, and one of the people who ends up giving her medical advice is my dad. And they became friends. She shared this with me, by the way, and was totally fine with me sharing it, but it was very unexpected. Speaker 6 (4:55) My dad is not a doctor to the stars kind of person. He's just a Lebanese guy in Tennessee. But they were friends suddenly. And so when I started getting curious about Dali as maybe the subject of a story, I was like, you know what, Dad? I need you to introduce me. Speaker 6 (5:15) And he did. I sat down to talk with her, to ask her about this Dolly moment, how she thinks about it. Does she consider herself the Grand Unifier? Does that include everyone? A lot of these questions. I thought maybe I would get a story out of it or two. But what ended up happening was in simply talking with her about her life and then talking with people about her, I fell into so many different rabbit holes. Profound questions of America kind of rabbit holes. And I was like, you know what? I think we got to make nine. We're going to take nine trips into the Dollyverse. This is Dolly Parton's America. I'm Chad Abumrad. Let's start. Speaker 6 (6:04) I first spoke to Dolly Parton in November of 2017. My Speaker 8 (6:08) chair's squeaking. Speaker 2 (6:09) It's the squeaky one, right? Speaker 8 (6:11) Oh, I know the squeaky chair gets the grease, but we don't have time for a lube job today. We got a show to do. Speaker 6 (6:17) We sat down in a studio in Nashville in a squeaky chair in front of a mic that unfortunately had a little bit of a buzz in it. Speaker 6 (6:28) Dolly had just come off of her Pure and Simple tour. Speaker 2 (6:31) She captured the hearts of generations. That Speaker 6 (6:34) was the tour where she famously played the pan flute. Speaker 2 (6:37) Oh, yeah, just for Speaker 8 (6:38) show. I'm not great at any of it, but I can make a good show. Okay, that's good. Better take off the jewels before I hammer and mess up a good take. Speaker 6 (6:54) I had heard you play 20-something instruments. Is that right? Speaker 8 (6:56) Oh, I play Adam. Speaker 6 (6:58) I can't Speaker 8 (6:59) tell if I play any of them well. The guitar is my best one. But I play a lot of mountain instruments, too. Dalsmer. A lot of harp. Banjo, that kind of stuff. Speaker 6 (7:11) And you play wind, too. Speaker 8 (7:13) Well... That's the penny whistle. We do a little bit of an Appalachian thing that we just a little woodwind, but it's just the mountain sounds. It's not like something you'd learn or play in an orchestra. It's just got that old mountain sound. Speaker 6 (7:29) Gotcha. Anyhow. Speaker 8 (7:33) Well, you know me. You're just asking. I'll just tell it as I know it or as I feel it, what I want you to hear. Speaker 6 (7:42) So I decided to start the interview by playing her some stuff of hers. I'd love to play some of your early stuff. Okay. This one, just tell me what comes to mind when you hear it. Speaker 2 (7:56) Wow. Speaker 6 (8:00) What is that first line? Speaker 8 (8:02) Oh, being born was the worst mistake I ever made. The doctor didn't spank me, he just slapped me in the face. Well, as a writer, you want to come up with all those. You want to come up with some really good lines if you're a really good songwriter. Speaker 6 (8:20) Where does that come from? Speaker 8 (8:21) That was really, really early on in those early, early days. Oh, I used to write a lot of sad-ass songs. Speaker 6 (8:31) Let me explain the reason I wanted to start with this sad-ass song. Growing up in the early 80s, I... I mean, one of my main associations with Dolly before this project was that she was sort of a punchline. Or, like, she was her own punchline. You know, like, I remember she would go on Leno or Letterman. You Speaker 1 (8:53) look terrific. And upstairs earlier today, we were discussing your weight. Speaker 6 (8:59) They talk about her weight for a little while. They then talk about how she looks. Then inevitably... Speaker 2 (9:03) People are always asking if they're real. Oh, I Speaker 6 (9:06) wouldn't know. They'd start talking about her breasts. But Speaker 2 (9:09) I would give about a year's pay to peek under there. Speaker 6 (9:14) They'd joke about her breasts. But then she would make an even better joke about her breasts. Speaker 8 (9:19) Do you know what's worse than a giraffe with a sore throat? And they'd say, no, what? And the answer is Dolly Parton with a chest cold. Speaker 6 (9:29) Here's another example. Speaker 1 (9:30) The headline on the other major news story today, to which we intend to devote some time, is very simple. Hello, Dolly. Speaker 7 (9:36) Yes. The first cloned sheep was known as Dolly the sheep. Speaker 6 (9:41) This is Helen Morales, author of the book Pilgrimage to Dollywood. Speaker 7 (9:44) Scientists managed to clone a cell. A single mammary cell Speaker 6 (9:48) from a six-year-old ewe. Speaker 7 (9:50) And that cell was from a mammary gland. So these men thought it would be a good idea. I Speaker 2 (9:54) thought it would be a good idea to call her Dolly after... Dolly Parton. To Speaker 7 (9:59) call it Dolly. I Speaker 2 (10:00) don't think I need to explain any more than that. Speaker 7 (10:05) But the sting in that story is, and characteristically Dolly Parton, is that when she heard about this, she invited the sheep, when it had served its scientific purpose, to come and live at Dollywood. Speaker 6 (10:18) So when you go on these shows and they make a joke about you and you double the joke, what is that? Speaker 2 (10:25) Part Speaker 6 (10:26) of me thinks... Part of me loves that, but part of me thinks, why wouldn't you just tell these people, like, come on, I've written 5,000 songs. Ask me about my songs. So I don't know. I have two thoughts at once. Why wouldn't I Speaker 8 (10:39) go out with my tits hanging out, showing them, pushing them out there, and not expect somebody to make some kind of a comment on it? And I know what they're thinking, so I'd rather say it before they do. And then we get that off our chest, so to speak, right up front. Speaker 6 (10:55) That's a good pun, by the way. Speaker 8 (10:56) Yeah, I know. I've said it before. But I really do, like, I just think, well, you know, I mean, this is how I look. Of course you're going to notice it. See, I do that, too, for the public. I mean, it's like a little comedy thing. Speaker 6 (11:11) In that last sentence, by the way, Dolly was actually referencing something she'd once told Barbara Walters, like, years ago. Speaker 2 (11:17) Show business is a money-making joke, and I've just always liked telling jokes. But do you ever feel that you're a joke, that people make fun of you? Oh, I know they make fun of me. But actually, all these years, the people, you know, have thought the joke was on me, but it's actually been on the public. Speaker 6 (11:37) So, yeah, growing up, and I think I speak for many people of my generation when I say this, at least many men, Dolly Parton was seen as this kind of joke maker. This cloud of jokes always swirling around her, you know, jokes people would make about her that she would make about herself, maybe on the public. I don't know, but her persona was so big that often it was the only thing that got noticed. Speaker 6 (12:05) But then, I'll be honest, one of the first bits of guidance that we got as we were embarking on this series, and by we I mean myself and producer Shima Oliai, is Shima was talking with writer Helen Morales, who you heard earlier. Helen was basically telling Shima, look, you can talk about the persona and the jokes. Speaker 7 (12:25) It would be a pity if somewhere in your series there wasn't something about her songwriting. The only thing I would say is treat her lyrics seriously in a way that Johnny Cash has had books written about his lyrics, Hank Williams has been taken seriously, but Dolly Parton hasn't. Speaker 6 (12:48) Which brings us back to... Speaker 7 (12:49) Oh, Speaker 8 (12:49) I used to write a lot of sad-ass songs. Speaker 6 (12:52) That's what was really surprising. There's some darkness in those early songs. Speaker 8 (12:56) Well, you, as a songwriter, and see, you've got to remember, too, that's how I grew up. Speaker 6 (13:00) Now, hardcore Dolly fans will know this, but Dolly's discography goes back all the way to 1967, and the songs on those first four albums? It's an ocean of pain. Speaker 7 (13:10) Those songs which many people don't know about, they're not the ones that have made the charts, they provide an insistent witnessing of women's lives. Speaker 6 (13:21) That's how Helen Morales puts it. Speaker 7 (13:22) Women being treated really badly by men. Speaker 6 (13:26) Let me just play you another one. Speaker 6 (13:45) Do you remember this one? Speaker 8 (13:46) That was Daddy Come and Get Me. That was actually a