Jolene

Onstage in 1988, Dolly Parton told her audience that "Jolene" was based on a true story, which was why she did not like to sing it too often. As she has told it, a red-headed bank clerk used to flirt with her husband, Carl Dean, at his local branch when the couple were newly married. The name and the look came from somewhere else entirely: a young fan with red hair, green eyes and fair skin who came on stage asking for an autograph. Parton repeated the girl's name over and over to remember it, and that repetition became the chorus. She recorded the song at RCA Studio B in Nashville in May 1973 with producer Bob Ferguson. Chip Young played the thumb-picked guitar figure that drives it, with Wayne Moss adding a second steel-string part from the second refrain. Parton has said she wrote it around the same time as "I Will Always Love You". Released as a single in early 1974, it became her second solo number one on the country chart and her first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100. What keeps people returning is the narrator. She does not threaten her rival; she pleads with her, admits she cannot compete, and never learns whether Jolene even wants the man. That ambiguity has inspired answer songs and fresh readings, which Parton has welcomed as another take on it. It is, by her own count, her most covered song, and in 2024 Rolling Stone placed it first among the greatest country songs of all time.