"Jolene"

When Dolly Parton was beginning her career performing with Porter Wagoner in the late 1960s, she says all the musicians used to stay after a concert to sign autographs.

In a story that ran on All Things Considered in October 2008, Dolly explained that one night, “‘there was this beautiful little girl—she was probably 8 years old at the time.  And she had this beautiful red hair, this beautiful skin, and these beautiful green eyes.  And she was looking up at me…for an autograph.  I said [to her], ‘Well, you're the prettiest little thing I ever saw.  What is your name?’  And she said, ‘Jolene.’"

Dolly made it a point to remember that name by repeating it to herself over and over until she got back to the tour bus so she could write it down.

“Jolene.  Jolene.  Jolene.  Jolene.”

In fact, the words began to take on a rhythm of their own, and before long, Dolly was writing a song with that name in it.

But it was to be a song about a different redhead entirely:  “a bank teller who was giving [her] new husband a little more interest than he had coming.”

“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Dolly told NPR. “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.’”

And while Dolly swears it was really “an innocent song all around,” she made it clear that “competing with that tall redhead in the bank who was after her husband” stirred up feelings of inadequacy that made those anxious lyrics very easy to write.

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