How Dolly Parton's “Jolene” was inspired by her husband Carl Dean

In the early days of her marriage, almost six years ago, Dolly Parton realized that her husband had spent a lot of time at the bank. She told him to knock it off.

She later led her feelings to her 1973 hit, “Jolene.” Her fans have been singing unforgettable choruses ever since.

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I beg you don't take my man

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

Don't take him just because you can.

The song was one of Parton's husband Carl Dean, an asphalt paver who died on Monday at 82, and was inspired decades after he met in 1964 outside the Nashville Laundry. Although it never reached number one on Billboard's main singles chart, it broke through Billboard's country charts and won any Grameen songs.

In many years of interviews, Parton attributes the song's ability to stay with a variety of factors, including the simplicity of the chorus and the minor “mystical” keys.

She says that many women told her they found the story – while acknowledging Jolene's beauty, she begs not to steal her husband “just because you can” – it relates.

When the song appeared, “No one wrote about the issue from that side to go to someone trying to steal your man,” she told entertainment news site Vulture in 2023.

“I have a certain fear that you want to be able to stick with them and that you don't take anything for granted,” she said. “It's all summed up in that one song, and it's a singer-spoken song on top of it.”

She came up with the title after meeting a girl named Jolene while signing an autograph session, which she recalled in a 2020 interview with music site Pitchfork. But she said the woman the song describes is a bank teller who “has long, long, less than long” that caught her husband's eye.

“We knew he didn't have some kind of money to spend that kind of time at the bank,” she told Pitchfork with a laugh.

Over the years, she spoke to the Vulture, telling her that fans suspect everyone would actually take her man.

“Look, there are always people who are more beautiful than you,” she replied. “There's always someone special than you. When you become a loved one, you'll always feel a little threatened and uneasy.”

The song is covered with a long list of artists, including Keith Urban, White Stripes, Laura Marling and Parton's God daughter Miley Cyrus. Parton himself used the melody to change “joking” to “vaccine” about receiving a shot of the coronavirus.

“Jolene” also directly inspired other songs. The narrator washes her husband's hands in the 2021 song “You Can Take Him to Yoren,” by country band Chapel Hart.

Country singer Cam had a 2018 hit called “Diane.”

Diane, I promise I didn't know he was your man

You've probably noticed Diane, a golden wedding ring

I want you to hate me more than you don't understand

Ah, Diane

“It's an apology worthy of so many spouses, but you never get it,” Cam told Rolling Stone magazine.

In Beyoncé's 2024 take on “Jolene,” the narrator adopts a more assertive position by warning, rather than pleading for leaving her man alone.

It's easy to understand why you're attracted to my man

But you don't want this smoke

So shoot a shot with someone else

Parton told the Vulture that some people assume she hates covering songs. Her answer is always no.

“I say, 'No, I love hearing all the ways people choose to interpret them,” she said. “It won't change that for me because I know what I'm saying and what I've been writing.”