i've been asked a lot recently whether i'm still doing my a - z. answer: yes i am. but i just got a little stuck on 'u'. why? well when i elected to listen to dolly parton on the first morning my new flatmate had moved in, his horror at my taste in music was more than evident. he scratched at the door, begging to be left out, and decrying how his life had possibly come to this.... this led me to a period of intense self-reflection: was my taste cheesey? was dolly really as good as i thought? is it possible that a love of country music is weird and socially-isolating?
answers, respectively: no way, yes way, and no way.
i refuse to believe that dolly parton is anything other than amazing. you gotta respect anyone who has released fifty-eight studio albums, twenty-four compilation albums, four live albums and one hundred and six singles. woah, mama. 'ultimate dolly parton' seems to be one (of the most recent) in a loooooong line of 'best ofs', and it's a pretty good track listing. it contains a number of quite discursive tracks: the opener "joshua", telling a story of a country girl falling in love with some kind of recluse (could this be autobiographical? i don't know), and after reaching #1 on the u.s. singles charts in 1970 is still a solid song. "coat of many colours" is a similarly rambling tale (no question there on whether it's autobiographical - the clear references to parton's mother and childhood are a good indication... that and the fact that said coat is apparently on display at her museum, "dollywood.") (as an aside, how awesome is the idea of "dollywood"?!) i am clearly biased towards two favourite tracks on this album: "9 - 5" (always good for a morning listen if motivation is in short order) and "jolene". jolene, jolene, i love everything about this jaunty country track.
my new flatmate's horror probably wasn't eased by my other flatmate's boyfriend (let's call him "the hunter") insisting that we play "i will always love you" twice over. personally, the song doesn't do it for me, possibly due to its ruinage by whitney / the bodyguard. but apparently it really did do it for the hunter. i'll give him one concession: dolly does it best.
in short: dolly parton is awesome. she's country-lite: accessible, easy listening, and jaunty good times. i can't listen to too much of her in one sitting (i'll admit i've never got from start to finish of this album) but a few tracks here and there can be a real day brightener. a strong female icon in a male-dominated world, i'm not at all ashamed to admit that dolly rules.
it seems i will just need to give my new flatmate a little more training.
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