dolly parton spoke for us, on the higher frequencies.
Don’t try to cry your way out of this
Don’t try to lie or I’ll catch you in it
Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you
Just because I’m blonde
Don’t think I’m dumb
‘Cause this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool
— Dolly Parton, “Dumb Blonde” (written by Curly Putman)
From even before her first hit in 1966/67, “Dumb Blonde,” it was clear, as Porter Wagoner himself pointed out, that Dolly Parton was hardly that. As the song lyrics put it, “this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool.” OK, she was blonde, but the mountain girl from Tennessee was also one of the smartest, toughest, fiercest people on this earth. In the coming weeks, there will be many encomia, tributes, and celebrations of Parton, who died at the age of 80, and there should be, not only for her music, but also for her feminism, pro-LGBTQ+ politics, anti-racism, commitment to community and family, generosity, decency, grace, humor, and profound humanism. Let one, two, many Dollys bloom! May we all locate our inner Dollys!
All that said, what bears listening to most of all is her voice. Few channeled the high lonesome sound of the Appalachian mountains into modern times as Dolly Parton did. This is a voice whose timbre is sweet, round, and gentle in the middle and bottom ranges, like a great big smile, but then there is a pinched tension on top.
It’s a sharp ache, a quick warble, a compact quiver. It appears for a moment, like a tremble of the lip, a glare of the eye, a little cry of hurt. The smile rapidly covers it up, again, of course, but once you hear it, you can’t miss it. That sound is the silvery needle that glints in the light, soaring above the smile. It punctures the garment, it stitches the seam.
To me, that higher frequency is worth paying attention to when we commemorate Dolly. It signals the pain, loss, regret, and sorrow both Dolly and all of us experience in life. It’s the prick of the thorn, the snarl in the plan, the punch to the gut. Dolly will never stop smiling, and she shouldn’t, for there is power in vivacity; but her ability to lift her voice into that higher register, that lonesome sound, is, for me, what makes all that is dulcet in Dolly worth its salt.