Every kid in east Tennessee grows up thinking they are personally related to Dolly Parton. It’s not some aspirational celebrity hope, or even a fantastical belief like dreaming of Santa Claus. She’s just Dolly. She’s real and she’s a member of your family!
I thought Dolly was one of my grandmother’s best friends. Dolly lived at Dollywood, obviously, and was rarely home except for one day when I saw her in a parade at the them park. It was normal to see her on T-shirts and bumper stickers. Today, most Tennessee children of my acquaintance call the legendary Ms. Parton “Aunt Dolly,” as she was introduced to the audience of Hannah Montana. Four-year-olds in the Volunteer State might not even know who Miley Cyrus is, but Dolly sends them a book every month. She is the fairy godmother of the Great Smoky Mountains.
In my teens, around the time my grandmother passed away, I evolved into an alt-rock girl. I like heavy bass and fuzzy feedback; I craved anger in my music. For a time, I was ashamed of country. I didn’t want to be associated with pick-up trucks and beer! But leaping into the mosh pit didn’t free me from the chains of misogyny and homophobia either. Throughout the long years I fought to figure myself out, clawing and elbowing my way into a life I could live with, Dolly remained as a constant, kindly regarding and loving me whether I ever wanted to listen to her tunes or not. I did eventually return to her music, of course. Dolly is an astonishing virtuoso of her art, and our shared accent continues to bless me with karaoke credibility I’d never earn on the basis of my own talent.
Now, Dolly Parton has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. When she discovered she was nominated for what she felt was an undeserved honor, she tried to remove herself from consideration, but apparently the grinding wheels of Big Rock are set in stone. Awarded the designation without feeling she had earned it, or even ever participated in the genre at all, 77-year-old Dolly decided to set the matter aright by recording a rock album, fittingly titled Rockstar.
And y’all? That’s the stuff I truly admire about Dolly. The short-memoried internet canonizes her as a saint, but Dolly herself has never laid claim to perfection. When she screws up, she always recognizes it and does better. In Dolly’s current effort to rock out, did she allow an icky musical artist like Kid “MAGA” Rock to join the line-up? Well, yeah, sadly. That disappointment is nothing new for a Southern queer like me with lots of older relatives. Am I personally going to throw my beloved Aunt Dolly’s whole new album in the garbage over one track out of 30 total? Fuck no, especially not when there are amazing LGBTQ+ artists on the record, too! I’m here for the good stuff, and so are you.
Let’s get into a ranking of our favorite queer collaborations from Dolly Parton’s new rock and roll album, ranked from “maybe it rocks?” to “hell yeah, this rocks.”
“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” (featuring Elton John)
This is good. By any objective measure, it cannot be considered bad. I would lose my entire mind if I experienced this collaboration live in person. But listening via a streaming service through my headphones, all I can think is, “Damn, I would love to experience this collaboration in person, by surprise!” If Dolly Parton and Elton John urged me in person to not let the sun go down on them, I would alter the foundations of time itself to make that possible. I would convince some zillionaire to fly them around the planet in an eternal state of golden hour until they each gently perished of old age. Dolly? Elton? I do not want to let the sun go down on you! Alas, I do not yet have control over the earth’s orbit. Perhaps I will appreciate this track more once I gain that power.
“We Are The Champions/We Will Rock You”
On paper, Dolly deserves to cover this duo of Queen songs with an authority possessed by few people alive. She has paid her dues! She has made mistakes, and done better, and carried on as an icon! She knows of what she speaks. Unfortunately, this is one of those tracks where the absence of Freddie Mercury echoes over the entire song. I’m not sure what Brian May was thinking while laying down guitar on the original recording, but Freddie’s vocals deliver a clear message to any harasser: step up to this queer, and you’ll get knocked the fuck out. This is a gay fight anthem.
It makes a strange sort of sense that these tracks became “macho” sports anthems, but it’s weird to hear Dolly sing them. I feel like there’s an explicitly femme version of this song pairing yet to be delivered, but this version exited my mind the instant it finished playing. Dolly is not out there stomping anyone to death in an alley anymore! I’m not sorry she did this song, but perhaps only a real killer should sing these words.
“Tried To Rock And Roll Me” (featuring Melissa Etheridge)
Melissa Etheridge sounds as hot as the burning coal fires of hell, y’all. I freely admit that I have been sleeping on Melissa Etheridge since “Come To My Window” was constantly on the radio during my middle-school years. Now, Melissa Etheridge’s voice can rock and roll me any day and night. I was an hour into my YouTube journey of Melissa Etheridge performances when I remembered I was supposed to be talking about Dolly because there’s a masculine pronoun in this particular song. Who the hell is this “Romeo” they’re talking about? Just take a brief, three-hour break to go watch some old Melissa Etheridge performances, then come back to this article. Ooof, oh, ow. Damn.
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (featuring P!nk and Brandi Carlile)
Dolly slams the quintessential Rolling Stones track with the aid of Brandi Carlile and P!nk. Initially, this track hit me like a karaoke performance. I’d be impressed hearing it live, but on recording I felt unmoved. Then! At the 2:22 mark, the sound does something psychedelic that is probably not that impressive to anyone who seriously understands audio production, but I don’t care. Please, everyone who has any power in this arena, do this to all music with a Dolly vocal track now. Make it happen in all songs ever produced, henceforth! It makes my brain feel floaty, and now every song should do it, always. This song is a winner for this reason.
“Bygones”(featuring Rob Halford)
Okay, everybody. I’m supposed to be arranging this list in ascending order of rock-ness, and here I am placing the actual rocking-est song in third place. When I saw that leather god Rob Halford of Judas Priest fame was going to participate in this album, I got hype as hell. I am desperate for Dolly to cover “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming.” My anticipation for metal outpaced anything my grandmother’s close personal friend was ever gonna deliver.
But “Bygones,” an original track performed with Halford, absolutely rules. I’m glitching a little bit, struggling to accept this reality, because the lyrics require two essentially un-cancellable vocalists who are in long-term stable relationships to wail about the pain of not being able to forgive a lover. The rocking-ness of this performance has made me realize that I used to accept musicians delivering crafted fictional narratives in their song, before the era of parasocial relationships destroyed all of our brains. Is Rob Halford delivering a sharp message to his husband here? Is Dolly trying to stab emotionally at Carl Dean? No! At least, I hope not. What I do know is that I wish my grandmother were alive so I could drive her around blasting this song to make her laugh.
“Wrecking Ball” (featuring Miley Cyrus)
Is this rock? This is pop. Who cares! I’m not the genre police; this song made me cry.
Miley Cyrus got the ultimate Tennessee kid experience of having Dolly as her actual godmother. We all sort of knew Dolly would still love us if we were queer, then Miley turned out to be pansexual and we all knew for super certain sure that Dolly will love us in our whole queerness.
Together, this is the ballad of a Sagittarius who wanted love, with a Capricorn who desperately, fondly, regretted the loss of a professional relationship, both singing in an accent I used to be ashamed of having. Holy fuck, this is a wrecker. I can’t be objective here. The intergenerational harmonizing would be the jewel of the collection, if not for…
“What’s Up?” (featuring Linda Perry)
I mentioned before that I’m not a genre queen, but I still live in fear that some imaginary too-cool Gen Xer will someday tell me that everything I have ever thought and done in my entire life was actually dirt. Maybe that’s what God will look like! Maybe that’s the meaning of the struggle: eventually someone in a velvet skirt and combat boots will come along and kick you down.
Who cares! I’m prepared to make a bold statement: this song is worth Dolly’s entire rock album effort. This is the good shit. It feels a little weird to compare this to Johnny Cash’s iconic cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt,” but that’s exactly what I’m doing. Linda Perry was on the underside of 30 when she wrote this song, and it really hits to hear a 77-year-old Dolly sing about the “brotherhood of men” she had to navigate to foment her career. This song benefits from an older voice. Dolly’s been through it all, and she’s still singing.
Rockstar is available now via Butterfly Records.
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