Woman Shares Convincing Story Of Realizing Dolly Parton’s Song “Jolene” Is Named After Her
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“For years our family has joked that my mom is the real ‘Jolene’…but in a crazy plot twist we discovered that she really is the inspiration behind the famous Dolly Parton song!” wrote Jenna Dailey in the caption of a Sept. 8 video of her mother.
The video begins by posing a simple question: “Who is Jolene?”
A woman can then be seen sitting down on a rocking chair, and she replies, “It’s me. I’m Jolene.”
Many people know the story of how the famous Dolly Parton song “Jolene” came about, but this is the first time that the story has been publicly told by the woman who once inspired the song’s catchy title.
Now, this account from the woman who was once the little girl named Jolene is another layer in the tapestry of our understanding of one of the great songs by the late Dolly Parton.
See The Woman Who Inspired Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” As She Tells Her Story
How the name Jolene came to Dolly Parton and inspired her to use it as the name for her song has been told by Dolly before.
Speaking with NPR in 2008, Dolly shared how she used to go out and sign autographs after her appearances on The Porter Wagoner Show in the 1960s.
“One night, I was on stage, and there was this beautiful little girl — she was probably 8 years old at the time,” Parton said. “And she had this beautiful red hair, this beautiful skin, these beautiful green eyes, and she was looking up at me, holding, you know, for an autograph. I said, ‘Well, you’re the prettiest little thing I ever saw. So what is your name?’ And she said, ‘Jolene.’ And I said, ‘Jolene. Jolene. Jolene. Jolene.’ I said, ‘That is pretty. That sounds like a song. I’m going to write a song about that.'”
That song would go on to become the title track of Dolly’s 13th studio album, Jolene, which was recorded and released in 1973.
On Aug. 25 of this year, Dolly Parton died at the age of 80.
A few weeks later, on Sept. 8, a woman in Ohio filmed her mother tell the story of how she inspired the song “Jolene” with her name.
“My name is Jolenna,” says Jolenna Dailey in the video.
Born in 1961, she has often had people come up to her and ask if she was named after the song “Jolene,” she explained, but she would always tell them that she was born before the song came out.
While her name is spelt Jolenna, it’s pronounced “Jolene-ah,” and she would often tell people that her name was like the song “Jolene” with an extra vowel at the end.
Unbeknownst to Jolenna, until Dolly died on Aug. 25, Dolly had shared the story of how she came up with name of the song “Jolene” on several occasions.
On the day Dolly Parton died, one of her co-workers broke the news to Jolenna’s office and asked her if there was a chance that the song “Jolene” was inspired by her. The coworker went on to look up the story, and they found that Dolly had said that she took the name from a little girl she met at a concert.
“‘Oh, wow,'” Jolenna recalled saying. “‘I could be Jolene.'”
This got Jolenna thinking, so she contacted her older brother, asking, “Tell me the story of the famous person we met when we were kids.”
Her brother replied:
“Yeah, it was Dolly Parton. It was 1967. We were at Buck Lake Ranch near Angola, Indiana. She just thought we were so cute because we were all dressed alike… She was so kind and was so sweet.”
A family photo appears on the screen at this point in the video, just after 2 minutes in, showing them all dressed similarly.
Continuing her account of this personal discovery, Jolenna said she found a video interview in which Dolly explains the origins of the song’s name. Interestingly, in the video — a clip of which is included in the video of Jolenna’s story — you can hear Dolly seem to say “Jolenna” and not “Jolene.”
Her brother then confirmed, “‘Yep, that was you!'”
“Yes, I’m Jolene, and I did not find that out until the day of Dolly’s death,” Jolenna then said, adding, “I’m sure she would’ve remembered us.”
Considering that Jolenna was either five or six, and that Dolly was not yet a household name in 1967, her story of meeting the country artist 59 years ago rings true.
Near the conclusion of the video, Jolenna then stated, “I’m sharing this because it’s just so fun. You know, we all want to the stiry behind songs or behind movies that we see. We want to know the person, and I thought, ‘ This is such a fun thing to share with the world.'”
Noting that she’s seen a lot of people ask who the girl is who inspired the name of the song, or if that girl even knows Dolly’s account of how “Jolene” was named, Jolenna said, “I thought you all would enjoy seeing that.”
She then said:
“It just really shows, to me, how sweet Dolly was and how she saw people and remembered people, and it just really shows her heart.”
Watch Jolenna tell her story of learning after all these years that “Jolene” was really named after her, here:
Watch Dolly Parton perform “Jolene” live in 1973 on The Porter Wagoner Show, here:
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