Tag Archives: Dolly Parton

“Tell Me Can You Hear Me Now.”

This was my last back to back to back listen. The last song on Cowboy Carter was “Amen.” It is precisely what I felt like saying at the end of it, too as an angelic chorus signed off sweetly singing “Amen.”

Beyonce asks us to tell her we can hear her. It is a definitive yes and can I have more, please? But I know she is not asking those who are already fans or beliefs most likely align with hers, she is asking everyone. Not begging. But telling them, I spoke, I shouted, I sang, I whispered and I growled on these tracks. Did you hear me? I invited Linda Martell, Willie Nelson, Shaboozey, Willie Jones, Dolly Parton, and a host of others, honored Mr. Chuck Berry and invoked the spirit of Ms. Tina Turner thee Legend. Did you hear me? I cracked your heart open with my ballads, turned you on and made you shake and sweat. Did you hear me? I didn’t stick to my lane. Did you hear me? I called out your hypocrisy and rejection. Tell. Me. You. Can. Hear. Me.

I did, girl. I heard you.

And your voice asked me to give you twenty-seven days.

Amen.

“I’ma stand by him, he gon’ stand by me(I’ma stand by her, she gon’ stand by me)”

Three listens of “Jolene” today from the Cowboy Carter album. Back to back to back. Even with a title like that, I thought less and less about the woman she was describing and more about the rooted relationship she wouldn’t hesitate to fight for with all of her “Creole Banshee” might. When you pour a decade or two of yourself, your very life force into a bond, there isn’t much you wouldn’t do to protect it. There isn’t much you can say to adequately explain how each of you are rooted in one another. It doesn’t mean there won’t be crushes or the occasional wandering eye (Don’t we all love a shiny bauble from time to time?) but to break it, crumble until it’s dust is another matter altogether.

I love the smooth rides, the hectic days, the humdrum of our life. I can’t imagine a Jolene or a Jamal or whomever or whatever tearing it apart.

But.

We can be our own Jolene, desperately searching for something that we don’t need or another person or so-called adventure to fix what we believe is broken because we haven’t done the internal work to show up as our best self for our partner.

As the song says, I’ma stand by him. But I also going to stand by and up for us.

“But it hurts just the same.”

Yes, it hurts just the same. It doesn’t matter where you come from or what you look like, if you have loved someone, your heart has the potential to break just the same. We also hold the fear someone or something will break what we hold dear, whether we see it coming in the form of a “hussy with the good hair” or not. A simple interlude from Dolly Parton or “Dolly P” as this track is entitled, reminds me of this truth.

I may have smiled, getting excited to hear “Jolene” next but memories of my own made my smile lose some of its shine. I remembered what it’s like for my love to be threatened, hollow as it was. I am glad I had women who were my peers and older and more experienced than I to show me that they have been here before. And I was never alone.