Jolene

She wrote and recorded it for the 1974 album of the same name, with Bob Ferguson producing, and it was released as the lead single in January 1974, before the album. It reached number one on the country chart in February, her second solo country number one, and gave her a first entry on the Hot 100. The narrator begs a beautiful woman with red hair and green eyes not to take her husband just because she can. Onstage in 1988 Parton told the audience it was based on a true story, a red-headed bank clerk who flirted with her husband Carl Dean. She has also said the name and look came from a young fan who came on stage for an autograph, and that she sang the name over and over to remember it, which became the chorus.

Chip Young played the main thumb-picked guitar part on the recording, and Wayne Moss added a steel-string part that comes in on the second refrain. On The Bobby Bones Show in 2018 Parton said she wrote it on the same day as I Will Always Love You, and she later said the two were written pretty close at the same time. Douglas Wolk of Pitchfork called it a song about class, conveyed through a few details of her vocal. Rolling Stone ranked it number 63 on its 2021 list of the 500 greatest songs and number one on its 2024 list of the 200 greatest country songs.

Live and afterlife

It was nominated for the Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1975, and again in 1976 for a live recording from the television series In Concert. In Britain it reached number seven in 1976, her first chart success there, and returned to the chart when she played Glastonbury in 2014. After her death in 2026 it climbed to number six. She sang it at her 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and 190 performances are documented, second only to Coat of Many Colors. Lydia R. Hamessley devoted a 2025 book to it, Dolly Parton's Jolene.