Dear Jolene
Dear Jolene
two girls, one lad: on eskimo sisters or, a poetic interpretation of every song written by a woman to a woman for a man
I stay home a lot these days, or as they say it in girl-parlance, rejuvenate myself in my enclosure (my one bedroom apartment) very often. Physically, I’m alone. But spiritually I’m voyaging with high school girls from the Upper East Side in the 00s to greet the Mad Men of 2017 on a bicycle, listening to hallucinogenic-influenced beat poetry of the 50s and chasing Past Lives in 2023 until the present diffuses to a past left to be chased without living again.
One of these days as I sat working at my desk, on yet another sub-conscious spiritual voyage across media, I heard Dolly Parton tenderly cry “He talks about you in his sleep, And there's nothing I can do to keep, From crying when he calls your name Jolene” from the speaker in my living room. I picked up my phone to check what I was listening to which was followed by a loud sigh — Oh Dolly, what have you done!
50 years ago, Dolly Parton wrote“Jolene”,
a song with an energy that makes me anxious, nervous, anguished, devastated— all while my feet involuntarily groove to the tune. How much courage did she need to have to write what she wrote to the lover of her partner, Jolene? How much pain dripping down her bosom to her fingers around the pen? There is a man she loves, and a woman the man she loves, is in love with. There is envy. But there is admiration.
“Your beauty is beyond compare With flaming locks of auburn hair. With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green. Your smile is like a breath of spring. Your voice is soft like summer rain. And I cannot compete with you, Jolene.”
Dolly writes about Jolene in a way Jolene could only wish the man they’re both in love with could talk about her. There is conflict, but there is compassion. There is animosity, and yet there is solidarity. Dolly has every reason to despise her, and indeed, she does harbor that disdain. But how beautiful of her to acknowledge the allure of something she so vehemently dislikes, and oh how so painful.
To think: this thing in front of me — so beautiful, but it hurt me. How could something so beautiful hurt me and so ruthlessly? You are beautiful, Jolene but your beauty hurts me. And who else to better understand this pain than you, Jolene? Who else to know what it feels like to love this man, this same man, to be hurt by him all the same? Who else, but you? I hate you, Jolene. But nobody would ever get me the way you do. “So I’m begging of you please don’t take my man. Jolene, Jolene, Jolene. Please don’t take him just because you can.”
What must have Dolly gone through when she first realized that there was another woman involved? Did her man cheat on her? Did he love her and then leave her to love Jolene? How long did Dolly stew in her grief, how long until she was bitter in green? How long did she harbor hate for the man who wronged her, how long until she realized her love is greater than her pain? How long till she decided she loved him despite, how long till she knew she wanted him back? How long did she wait for her resentment for Jolene to melt into pity for herself?
They love the same man, but it is unlikely they love him the same way. In “Ladies”, Fiona Apple writes “Nobody can replace anybody else. So, it would be a shame to make it a competition. And no love is like any other love. So, it would be insane to make a comparison with you.”
Does Dolly understand this or is she too drunk in love? Does she see the power of her love or is she convinced only one man is deserving of it? Does she believe that what she has to beg to have — is love? Does she believe the love she possesses the power to produce can only be produced once and in one way, through him? What does Dolly call him with love? What does Jolene? What does he call Dolly with love? Did he call her Jolene?
How does she sleep at night? How does a woman sleep at night not rubbing one foot on the other until the skin from her dorsum starts to chip out? How does she not inflame it with amplified angst, once it does, to peel her bares as if to peel the other woman out of her man’s life?
The other woman. Who is she? Is it the woman that bears the ill fate of arriving late to a man’s life? Is she the one the man never acknowledges exists? Is she the one a man is ashamed of having in his life? Who is the man ashamed of? Is he ashamed of her or is she ashamed of himself? Where does the shame in love come from? Is he ashamed of his inability to publicly acknowledge what he truly desires in love? (and is she in pain because of it?) Or is he ashamed he couldn’t give up that which he does not love anymore before he found another to love? Or is he humiliated he needs both - the one he loves and the one he loves no more, to love him at the same time? Or is he weary of himself for not knowing what he loves or maybe loving them both, but only half truthfully?
In “Woman to Woman”, Shirley Brown dials up Barbara. Barbara - “a woman whose name and number she found in her old man’s coat that morning.” And Shirly does not wait. Shirley does not stutter. Shirley goes straight to talk to her because Shirley knows it’s easier to reason with B, woman to woman than it could ever be talking to a man, even her own man.
“So I'm telling you these things. To let you know how much I love that man. And woman to woman. I think you'll understand just how much I'll do to keep him. Woman to woman. If you've ever been in love. Then you know how I feel. And woman to woman. Now, if you were in my shoes. Wouldn't you have done the same thing too?”
Shirley is territorial, but she is soft. She intends to threaten, and yet she yearns to be seen.
“But it's only fair that I let you know that. That the man you're in love with, he's mine. From the top of his head, to the bottom of his feet. The bed he sleeps in and every piece of food he eats. You see, I make it possible.”
But does her man see it? Does he acknowledge his daily sustenance outsourced to a woman who does things for him as the only way she knows how to love? How often does he think about her in a day? How often does he do it when he doesn’t want something done for him? Either way, Shirley seems like the docile homemaker who is resigned to her fate. The kind of woman who is cognisant of the nature of man, the kind who wouldn’t even bring it up with him at dinner that night, chew the crumbs left of her marriage, swallow it down with wine and the bitter pill called Barbara.
While Shirley is soft, Loretta Lyn from “You Ain’t Woman Enough” is the woman who walks around with her claws out, painted a flamingo pink. She's convinced she’s got her man wrapped around her finger. She bleeds down her palm but she never checks to see if it’s a snake. She reveres her man. Would probably fight for him in a lady brawl or two. There is an externalized confidence in Loretta’s voice, yet bellied in her bosom rings a poignant melody of unrealized fear and insecurity. Of denial. Delusion.
“You've come to tell me something you say I ought to know. That he doesn't love me anymore and I'll have to let him go. You say you're gonna take him, oh, but I don't think you can. 'Cause you ain't woman enough to take my man”
Her man is something that can only be taken because he’s not the kind that would just go. Men do. But not hers.
“Sometimes a man's caught lookin' at things that he don't need. He took a second look at you, but he's in love with me.” Loretta says almost as if to reassure herself.
I don’t know if that woman was woman enough for her to take Loretta’s man and I bet she slept several sleepless nights contemplating if she was. Thinking: he took a second look at you. I wonder what he saw. I wonder if he liked it. I wonder if he liked it more than he loves me. I wonder if whatever it was - was enough for her to take my man from me. Is my man that take-able? Is he even mine? Was Dolly’s? Was Shirley’s? Is anyone woman’s?
“Women like you they're a dime a dozen, you can buy 'em anywhere. For you to get to him I'd have to move over. And I'm gonna stand right here.”
Women like you. Women like her. Women like them. Women like the other.
The Other Woman. You picture her promiscuous, perhaps with a coquettish gait. She’s either salaciously voluptuous or a petite skinny bitch. The other woman is fabled. She is made of open legs, cheap perfume, and a complex of your lack and desire in flesh. A seductress that casts spells that break homes and haunts the hearts of men who are loved. The other woman exists only because a man does. The other woman will exist as long as a man does. She is always lurking around. The other woman is beneath you. The other woman is above you. Whatever she is, that other woman is nothing like you.
“Hey, next girl, you don't know me. I'm just the one he says went crazy.”
They all do, don’t they? Wonder how all exes are so crazy? Wonder what makes them so crazy?
In “Next Girl”, Carly Pearce embodies the ‘fragile, handle with care’ tagged empty bag swinging on the carrier belt at the airport where no one comes to claim lost baggage — or, a woman in deep contemplation of all the women her man has loved before her, and all the women he will love after.
“He'll charm your mama with that smile. Hide the red flags for a little while. I bet you probably met him at a bar. Let him walk you to your car. I bet he said he never falls this hard. Yeah, I remember that part. He knows how to say all the right things. Knows how to get you outta that dress. Knows how to make you think you're the best thing. But I know what happens next, girl”
Now, Carly says a lot. And to spice my imagination, I will assume she says it all drunk. She boldly speculates on the dynamics of their past, almost challenging the new girl, asserting that her knowledge of the man surpasses hers.
When men practice selective vulnerability, that knowledge of a man almost becomes like a woman’s trophy as
puts it in her blog:“Watch for the gleam in the woman’s eyes when she pridefully says, “No, I know him. He likes this. He wouldn’t like that. Trust me, I know him.” She demonstrates that she has seen what you have not seen. She is telling you that she has glimpsed at what lies behind the mask. This is her trophy. She has been rewarded with a peek at his vulnerability. He has trusted her with his most exposed self. She has earned this.”
So as Carly contemplates the what would haves, I am curious to know if she ever hears back on what truly was. Perhaps she is right and everything happened exactly how she imagined. Alternatively, maybe she is wrong, and nothing aligns as it should. The uncertainty raises a poignant question: what hurts more? Is the greater pain in losing someone you knew so intimately? Becoming just another thread in their pattern and being no special. OR, the pain of discovering you might not have even known them as well as you thought. The profound anguish of having invested years with a man that you probably never truly understood?
Jolene: a cultural phenomenon
After Dolly wrote “Jolene”, countless women across decades have contributed to the lore by writing to their own Jolenes and adding their flavor and story to the mixtape. It was only a matter of course then that
The Jolenes wrote back
To Dolly. To Geraldine. To Diane.
“Oh, I promise I didn't know he was your man. I would've noticed a gold wedding band, Diane. I'd rather you hate me than not understand. Oh, Diane”
To nobody’s surprise, the Jolenes are hurting too. In Cam’s “Diane”, Jolene is hurting as much as Shirley, Loretta, or Carly above. She is just as cheated on, but all the more remorseful. She hates the man but she cannot do that before hating herself for wronging another woman. “And all those nights that he's given to me. I wish that I could give them back to you. You can blame me if it helps. That's what a good wife would do. But you're only cheating yourself. Choosing him over the truth”
Diane is aching. The man is guilty. Jolene is aching with guilt. She’s desolate, but she’s befuddled by her right to claim her grief. She hurts but she knows this is not her stage to cry. She begs for atonement, but not before she begs for Diane to get her shit together and honestly for all the right reasons. (I urge you to go through the lyrics of “Jolene” again. Our girls were not doing okay.)
If shame was a bottle of perfume, ‘That girl’ is the song you’d hear when the bottle shatters and the glass pieces hit the floor. It haunts Jennifer Nettles’ Jolene like a pre-school girl caught applying lipstick in her mother’s dresser, not knowing what about it was so wrong and why, but still feeling like it was.
“A friend gave me your number. To tell you watch your lover's tracks. See I always kind of liked you. So, I wanna have your back. There is a good chance by the time you hear this. The story's gonna say. That I came on to him. But it was never quite that way” or: Do not come to my house with handcuffs, I come to turn me in.
Nettles’ Jolene knows she cannot be redeemed in society; she cannot escape her fate of being scorned as the other. Yet she comes in clear conscience, almost as if she empathizes with the wife from a long-buried past of her own. Nettles’ Jolene is defensive. She wants to have her back, yet she knows the wife might not have hers.
“But when he kissed me in that alley. I could tell there was a you” Oh the good old woman’s intuition. The roaring rustle in her gut before the meek whispers beneath the vine.
“I don't want to be that girl. With your guy. To fool you. Make you cry. Wreck it all. For one night. To be with him when he should be with you. I don't want all the dirty looks. The headlines. So, I called you. To explain why. I wound up. With your guy. When I don't wanna be that girl”
Who is that girl? Is she the one who was once with Jolene’s guy? To fool her. Make her cry. Wreck it all, for one night? To be with him when he should’ve been with her. Did Jolene give her the dirty looks. And the headlines? Does Jolene call because that girl never did? Does she still resent her as much — that girl — now that she’s also that girl to someone else.
“I know boys can be promiscuous. Yeah, that's just what they do. But this involves both of us. Yeah, it's our business too. Imagine how surprised I was. When he got up to leave. It wasn't my name on his lips. No, he didn't call for me. He didn't say, Jolene”
He's your problem, good luck keepin' him home
The tables turned, as they do it in a good ol fable, and the women made peace. No one wants this man anymore, especially not Chapel Hart.
Oh Jolene, you can have him 'cause he don't mean much to me
“Well, since the last song, I've had time to think it over. A lot of tears, a lot of beer, a lot of wine. I spent so much time believin' that that midnight phone stopped ringin'. But he'd leave the room and answer every time
Oh Jolene, you can have him 'cause he don't mean much to me
Well, I cried so much 'til rivers turned to seas
Oh Jolene, when you think that he's in love, he'll surely leave
Like he did me
You can have him, Jolene”
You can have him but try to not want to, Jolene. You will love another again. Like all the other women who once loved him, did. Like I have now. You will love again, you will hurt again. Yet you will love again, and again, and again.
But should you choose to take him back. Should you make a home out of the house that was once ours, There's a dress in the closet. Don't get rid of it, you'd look good in it. I didn't fit in it, it was never mine. It belonged to the ex wife of another ex of mine. She left it behind, with a note. One line, it said: "I don't know if I'm coming across, but I'm really trying"
x
The Playlist
This is the playlist of all the songs interpreted above. It took me an entire month to curate it.
While pop culture abounds with songs about envy, love triangles, and the ethereal other woman across cultures and languages, this playlist is different in its curation of letters exchanged between two women for a man. All women in these songs directly address each other in the second person, woman to woman, and they all do it to talk of a common man they love.
I have spent the last two weeks stewing in this playlist for hours at my desk, screaming aloud each song in my apartment, trying to embody every woman up there —- their female rage, their grief, their love, their envy.
A few other songs that were also part of the lore but couldn’t make it to the playlist because they did not fulfill all conditions:
Caroline - a song about a woman talking to her man about another woman who called her on her machine and told her he broke her heart.
Skin - a song Sabrina Carpenter supposedly wrote for Olivia Rodriguez (context)
Hold my hand - a song where Brandy Clark bumps into her partner’s ex in a red dress, with the bluest eyes she has ever seen. As she comes to greet them ‘hi, how have you been?’, Brandy knows now would be a real good time for him to hold her hand.
Beautiful Liar - this song is already on the playlist, but aaaah Beyonce and Shakira address each other by name to talk about a man they both once loved.
There has been a long-term extended discourse around the misogynistic idea of the mistress, the other woman, eskimo sisters, and the goddamn bechdel test. Not to forget the lana-del-rayficaltion of female angst in love and the filmy trope of the union of the angry exes seeking revenge.
There are a thousand media assets and article commentaries on all tangents of this topic already, which is why this blog was not. If I were to write a critique on feminine envy and the misogyny in love, it would be a pretty long series. But I did not want to do that.
The purpose of my thot was feeling, not commentary. All I wanted to do was sit in the company of this score of women and ask them in my imagination - so how did that feel?
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I heard Jolene for the first time in a thrift store in Istanbul one evening recently. The owner was seated around this old table with a bunch of his friends, and they were sharing a bottle of wine as he explained the song's meaning to the rest of them. I stayed there, overhearing the conversation, and haven't been able to stop thinking about Jolene and Dolly since. Thanks for writing this; I think you would have been a perfect addition to that conversation at that table in that thrift store in Istanbul!