I love music and listen to many genres, jazz and classical being my favorites. The jumble of styles and selections that Alexa has stored and sorted from my CDs also includes country, along with Blue Grass. Among the vocals in the former category is a surprising number of vocals about being jilted. Lady Antebellum sings one called, “It Ain’t Pretty,” and Pistol Annies do “Hell on Wheels.” Waylon Jennings, Marty Robbins, and others wail about being cheated on by their girlfriends, but the quintessential song, to me anyway, about an unfair transfer of affection is Dolly Parton’s pleading song, Jolene.
I do like Dolly Parton for her being one of the most talented, creative, energetic and generous folks in the entire entertainment industry. However, the lyric for the song, Jolene, seems to demean the narrator as being very insecure, lowering herself to begging for the continued affection of a man who probably doesn’t deserve her in the first place. I mean, how unsure can this simpering woman be to solicit mercy in order to keep the very doubtful affection of a guy who doesn’t sound even close to meriting hers? Wake up, lady! If your man can be whisked away by Jolene, there may be yet another woman, who in a few more months (weeks, days, hours, or minutes?) will steal him from Jolene too. In fact, you should probably send Jolene flowers to thank her for revealing what a weak-willed bastard your man really is. You would otherwise (assuming Jolene is actually willing to give him up) be on edge every time the guy left the house to buy cigarettes or go to work.
No, just do yourself a favor, and let Jolene have his sorry ass, so SHE can worry about his lack of faithfulness every time he leaves the house for a gallon of milk. The problem, honey, isn’t Jolene. It’s the jerk you trusted would be faithful. Subscribe to HBO or the movie channel, buy a bottle of wine, and forget Jolene and Mr. Wanderlust. JB
About John
About John
John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes.
Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018
View all posts by John →
A suggested new lyric at the end of the song:
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I’m begging of you please DO take my man
🙂
Perfect!