2010s Musical Retrospective: Dolly and Madonna

Madonna and Dolly Parton: the two defining women for me (musically) over the past decade. These may seem unusual figured for a musical retrospective over the past decade as both artists are seemingly thought of as being important for their legacy and back catalogue rather than for their current releases. Parton in particular actively encourages nostalgia for her old material and her reputation as a legacy artist. However Dolly Parton is not just a legacy artist and has made a whole career out of not being reduced to just one thing. Further, both Madonna and Parton have been rather prolific over the past decade with albums, tours and other commercial ventures demonstrating that no matter how nostalgic Parton gets about her “Tennessee Mountain Home” or how much sexist ageism is directed at Madonna, neither are retiring any time soon or content to retread the same paths again. This post will focus on how listening to their albums released this decade has shaped my journey and the evolution of my music taste.  

The decade’s early years were taken up by my love of Madonna, and I remember how Lady Gaga supposedly copying Madonna on “Born This Way” seemed like a big deal. There was something about these two women and their LGBT+ fan bases that provided some of the affirmation and acceptance that I needed at that time. More than that, Lady Gaga and Madonna’s music is pop with a purpose. Their music aims to engage with social issues, involve listeners in their dynamic storytelling and to invite their fans into a hyper reality around their persona. Of course being too involved or blinkered by fandom is never good; however listening to Madonna gave me the confidence as I was trying to figure out my place in the world, (something I am still figuring out, but at least now I am at ease in my own skin). 

Having discovered both Madonna and Dolly Parton at quite advanced stages in their careers, I had and continue to have with Parton a lot of albums to discover. This meant until this decade, I had missed the experience of an album release day. In my second year of university in 2012 Madonna released MDNA and I dragged my boyfriend at the time with me to buy it from the shop. Although not my favourite album of hers, I still fondly remember those unusually hot March days in 2012 listening to that album and being part of Madonna fandom on release day for the first time. 2012 was a good year for my inner Madonna fan, but 2015 would be the pinnacle. Madonna’s next album Rebel Heart in my opinion could hold its own amongst her legacy.

 Rebel Heart is an eclectic album and in many ways is a smorgasbord of Madonna’s whole career: irreverent yet thoughtful engagements with religious iconography (‘Holy Water; “Devil Pray”); empowering dance-pop (“Living for Love”); bringing underground dance into the mainstream (“Body Shop; Illuminati”); and rare glimpses of Madonna performing vulnerability (“Joan of Arc; HeartBreak City”).   Rebel Heart also features an even rarer glimpse of Madonna being nostalgic in the deluxe version that features “Veni Vidi Vici” where Madonna namedrops a number of her biggest hits including “Borderline;” “Like a Virgin,” “Like a Prayer,” “Music” and “Ray of Light.” This nostalgia is also a key theme of the album’s title track. 

‘Rebel Heart’ is a pop anthem with an acoustic almost country-folk pastiche sound. Madonna sings of her life story with a strict father, standing out from the crowd, and continually striving in spite of adversity. The song sounds more nostalgic than its lyrics would suggest. Madonna sings ‘never look back it’s a waste of time’ and yet the mood is more reflective and one of looking back and so both impulses remain in the song and this tension makes the song such a compelling listen. For me in 2015 I was about to move to a new city, to Brighton to study a Masters called Sexual Dissidence and I was prepared to take more risks than I had before. Despite studying an English Literature course, by the end of my Masters’ I had written three essays on popular music (including one on Madonna) and the city of Brighton held so much potential for me to explore. I ended a nearly six-year relationship, and through listening to Madonna and her willingness to ‘shed’ the past and fearlessly embrace what lies ahead without a plan, I was prepared to take this chance on Brighton. 

Of course real life is rarely quite as good or exciting as a Madonna (or Dolly Parton) song. Brighton couldn’t live up to my expectations and deliver for me, and in all honesty was never going to. I had built such an idea in my head of Brighton as this ultimate destination to be gay and find fulfilment. I also allowed myself to get burnt out in campaigning and activism that I internalised a lot of the outrage that many movements use to drive forward momentum to the point that it affected my relationships. My behaviour became at times obnoxious and argumentative, I neglected the importance of building friendships and, and I ultimately isolated myself. It was in that moment, that Dolly Parton was to emerge for me. 

I was already a big Dolly Parton fan by that point having discovered her when I was 13 a good eleven years before I moved to Brighton, and considered myself a fan of country music more generally from around the age of 17, and so it was not that I suddenly discovered country. However Madonna had been my biggest musical inspiration for the past eight years up until then and so at that point around 2015/ 2016 there was a definite shift in how I saw my music taste. A particular Dolly Parton song began to resonate with me: 

‘Lookin' outta my windowpane
Tears minglin' with the rain
I'm so lonesome I could cry, just like old Hank
Starin' down on the city street
Feelin' empty and incomplete’

I was in the middle of Brighton, a city that I had built up so much in my head to represent the belonging I needed that ultimately it could not fulfill. So like Dolly I was ‘starin’ down on the city street’ and feeling lonely. There is something about being by yourself in a city compared to in the countryside. In the countryside you kind of expect to be by yourself that it becomes a kind of healing solitude, but in a city I’ve often wanted to be part of a community and so the times I’m by myself, involuntarily, stick out more. There was something about the direct honesty of country music that stuck with me: a certain fearlessness to look at a situation and summarise it plainly. Whereas Madonna was empowering and aspirational, country music gave me solace when empowerment and aspirations had failed, but also the strength to carry on. As Parton’s song continues:

‘There's a place I need to be to fill my tank
A place I can go where I can be free
Where I can be happy and just be me
Ho-o-ome
Where the warm wind's blowin' and the river's flowin' along’

One of the things I most love about Dolly Parton is her ability to understand and describe hard times and yet in the space of a few lines to flip this to hope and willingness to make the best of it. Her song ‘Two Doors Down’ is a great example of this where she starts off lonely and dark but refuses to stay in that place: 

‘ ‘Cause I can't stay inside
This lonely room and cry forever
I think I’d really rather join 'em
Two doors down’

Back to ‘Home,’ Parton creates this beautiful and nostalgic feeling of being completely accepted and belonging both in the pleasurable melody and the warm chirpy way she sings. Country music and Dolly Parton in particular thereby represented what I needed.

This has taken me to where I am today both personally and professionally. A key concept for what I’m working on through my PhD is the idea of ‘metronormativity’ a word coined by queer theorist, Jack Halberstam to describe the way in which cities such as Brighton are framed as the ultimate place of home and belonging for LGBT+ people and this dominant narrative obscures alternative experiences and stories. It’s important to make clear that this is not a reactionary anti-city stance, but more critical of the way in which certain narratives, in my case, build up certain expectations and foreclose certain other opportunities that might suit particular LGBT+ people better. 

‘Home’ just happens to come from the album Parton was promoting during her 2014 Glastonbury performance: Blue Smoke, an album that epitomises Parton in the past decade. Since changing manager in 2004 Parton has focused on promoting her persona and using projects as extensions of that. Blue Smoke captures the different facets of the Dolly Parton persona: the ‘authentic’ mountain singer with blue grass tinged songs such as ‘If I had Wings’ and the murder ballad ‘Banks of the Ohio’; the self-help guru on ‘Try,’ the diva on ‘Lover du Jour,’ and campy yet earnest left-field choices that make rock songs sound like Parton classics with her version of the Bon Jovi song ‘Lay Your Hands on Me’ that she turns into a gospel song. 

Over the past couple of years I have noticed Parton being acknowledged for an incredibly broad fan base stretching across class, political, sexuality and a whole host of other boundaries/ divides, and Parton has embraced new media and streaming platforms. Most notably in 2018 with Dumplin’ on Netflix, where I found people my age and younger were engaging with Dolly Parton as a figure, almost unanimously positively. Beyond this, Parton and country music provide me with a centred and grounded mind set to approach the world that seems increasingly fractured and confused, in a way that is both unflinching in confronting that complexity, but with an idealism that could be called naïveté, but I would say is a determination to not give up on the world and its people yet. In some ways it’s easy to throw in the towel and give up hope; it takes a lot of strength and hard work to see the world as it is whilst keeping faith in humanity. Both of which are there in country music and Dolly Parton. 

The 2010s for me have very much been bookended by Madonna and Dolly Parton. Even as I have moved away from Madonna slightly in recent years, nevertheless her music is as important to me as it ever was, and I still bought her last album from this year on its release day! Like Brighton, my shift away from Madonna is not so much to do with anything lacking in her work, but more that I found a genre that was a better fit for me, for now. Dolly Parton, just like Madonna, is always looking to explore new musical territory, ending the decade with a series of films based on eight of her songs (Heartstrings on Netflix); and three collaborations on songs about faith. These collaborations see Parton collaborating with dance DJs Galantis (“Faith”), Christian rock singer Zach Williams (“There Was Jesus”) and Christian alternative rock duo For Kind & Country (“God Only Knows”). The latter of which is nominated for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance at the upcoming Grammy Awards. This goes to show that Parton is very much a current artist and as much as her legacy deserves all the recognition and praise it gets, the 2020s may give us Parton’s best music of her career yet! 

Courage

This blog has been partially inspired by the release of Celine Dion’s new album Courage her first since her husband died and so about the struggle and perseverance to make the best of the rest of her life. This has also been in part in response to the past few weeks of my PhD as I’ve felt things get tougher just as the days get shorter and darker to boot! 

PhD life can be hard. And it can be hard in ways that you couldn’t anticipate until you get there. Even when things are going well, which fortunately in my case they mostly are, it feels like it requires all of your energy just to maintain how things are going, and even the smallest thing could be enough to knock you off balance. If anyone is reading this and feels similar, then just know you’re not alone!

I would like to share how I’m trying to negotiate and navigate this. At times it is about finding coping strategies, and they do have that place, but I have in principle been uncomfortable about approaches that just focus on individual coping with the situation rather than addressing some of the structural or collective underlying issues. This blog will mostly focus on my own coping strategies, but at the end I will share some of my thoughts on the more structural issues that institutions have a responsibility to address.

So here are my coping strategies. Again I can’t stress this enough, coping strategies are not the whole solution, however I am also aware that cultural change takes time and so we need something in the meantime. I am a natural introvert and so as much as I get a lot out of and enjoy the times I spend with people participating in things publicly, be they debates around my research area, meet and greets or even karaoke, my energy is maintained through time in my own company. In order for me to fully participate in these things I need to make sure I build into my week time in my own company. 

This time by myself I use in different ways, depending on the week. The activities I do are less important than the fundamental kind of experience that I need, which is to be able to check in with myself, my body and the person that is behind the PhD(olly) researcher that I perform throughout the rest of the week. For me it’s often a combination of walking in parks (I’m fortunate to be living near Jesmond Dene in Newcastle); listening to albums (in full I find important as it gives you a full experience of music that takes you out of the day to day; and sometimes mindfulness or prayer that ultimately allow me to check in with myself and pay more attention to how my body is actually feeling be that exhausted, stressed, angry, sad, which although may sound like negative emotions, it’s only by as Jewel says: 'turning towards' these emotions and going through them that I can then ultimately feel at peace and contented.  For any readers who are more spiritual this also gives me a chance to check in with my relationship to God. But (minus the prayer) these activities work well both in a secular and spiritual way. 

I often go through the week without checking in with how I am both mentally and physically  experiencing it, and I also have the habit of projecting a confident, positive and resourceful face on top of things. So even when I may acknowledge that I experience difficulties I seldom open up about problems that I am not confident with feeling at least on the way to working through. I rarely admit to feeling helpless or lonely.

Loneliness for me is the big one and is a tricky one to solve. As even whilst I try to resolve it through both trying to make the most of my own company,  and trying to be sociable and reaching out to friends, a lingering underlying sense of loneliness remains. One essay I read in the first couple of weeks here by Michael Cobb in the book After Sex just called “Lonely” said something that really struck a chord with me: ‘the loneliest of us are not necessarily those who are actually alone but rather those of us trying hardest not to be alone.’ And so there is no easy quick fix to it and sometimes the ways I react to feeling lonely only make the feeling worse. 

I mention this not for any sympathy, as the above quote shows this isn't about being friendless. I feel it is important for the integrity of this blog for me to be honest about things that have not quite been resolved, both to relieve the pressure of being on top of everything all of the time, and to demonstrate the limits of individual coping strategies and self-help.

As I mentioned before, the person I am day to day: the “PhDolly person’ has to be positive, inspiring and ultimately able to cope even whilst acknowledging the hard things. I sometimes catch myself thinking or even saying ‘Dolly Parton’s my therapy’ or ‘armed with my Ipod of Dolly Parton, I can take on anything.’ To be fair to both myself and Parton, her particular self-help is fairly multilayered and nuanced. Parton and country music in general takes the time to acknowledge the hardship, suffering and pain before switching to the note of empowerment such as the sentiment: ‘you better get to livin.’ For Parton is is about balancing the importance of processing what has bothered us against the risk of dwelling on it for too long. Particularly in her music, I would argue Parton treads this line well (although I will admit she does not always get this balance right least of all in her self-help books and media persona). Her 1976 song ‘Light of a Clear Blue Morning’ with its balladry start and more up-tempo finish I would argue demonstrates this balance perfectly. 

Of course neither myself or Dolly Parton are in charge of running a university or the government, so whereas the self-help she offers isn’t the whole solution, it is definitely not her responsibility to fix structural or systemic issues. The onus is on those institutions to address those. So what I would say about particularly university mental health initiatives, they currently focus disproportionately on self-help and individual coping. That is not to say that some of the activities such as mindfulness and yoga  people do not find useful and at times even essential lifelines, just as in some ways country music has been for me. This is not about stopping the provision, but more a reminder that just putting in support for people to cope is not even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to supporting people’s mental health and wellbeing. 

Mental health initiatives need to address financial hardship, institutional racism, equality and diversity, academic and institutional culture, experiences of belonging and unbelonging, workload, pay and pensions, and a whole host of other issues. This is of course a wide range of issues that don’t have an easy answer. However we should expect people who are in positions leading in these areas to have the ‘courage’ to be honest when they don’t have all the answers. I spent the last three years in university meetings in my role at a Students’ Union, and found the demand for easily practical solutions overruled anything else no matter how serious or complex the needs or issues were. We need to address these issues at the root, and be prepared for moments of lack of clarity, just as I am trying to be more comfortable with not having everything under control. 

Welcome to PhDolly!

Welcome to PhDolly! PhDolly is what I’m using to refer to my PhD and a range of activities connected with it. I have recently started my PhD at Newcastle University in their Music Department about Dolly Parton.  PhDolly covers this blog where I hope to showcase great Dolly Parton songs as well as celebrate great country music outside of Dolly; my Twitter and Instagram profiles; and my radio show on Newcastle Student Radio Saturdays 5-6pm. If you love or are curious about country music tune in, and if you have any requests message any of the social media accounts below!

So where did PhDolly come from?  I have always loved popular music and particularly how it connects with ideas of identity. As a teenager I discovered the music of stereotypical gay icons: Madonna, Cher and Celine Dion. I also discovered Dolly Parton, who although resonated with me in a similar way to the other singers, but there were ways in which Dolly Parton differed. 

Whilst the counter-cultural appeal of Madonna and the euphoric style of Cher and Celine made me look ahead to a better time, Dolly Parton made me reflect and work on things closer to my own home, with a mix of nostalgia and brave realism it helped me negotiate my school life, home life and family dynamics. When I was 17/18 and preparing to move away from home for the first time, it was then that country music really made an impression on me as a genre. In particular, the 90s feminist country: with artists like Mary Chapin Carpenter; Dixie Chicks and Faith Hill (just to name a few). These singers interrogated what home means, whilst also feeling restricted and wanting to move away from it. With strong emphasis on narrative and a vocal style focused on accent, character, and expression,  my experiences of coming out and finding my place in the world found no better home than in country music.  

I ended up studying English Literature at Sheffield University, not Music as I did not and still do not possess any musical talent, and did not really contemplate the possibility of being able to study Popular Music; however I was able to engage with writing around gender and sexuality.  By the time I was doing my Masters, and I was fortunate that the Sexual Dissidence MA at Sussex University was incredibly open to texts of any kind, I decided to write many of my essays on Popular Music: Tori Amos, Madonna and Dixie Chicks. 

Three years, a full time job and a trip to Nashville and Dollywood later I am now embarking on my PhD(olly). At the heart of this is exploring how country music and Dolly Parton in particular has queer potential. Country music is often dismissed as inherently homophobic and bigoted, and I am acutely aware of a number of these issues related to the development of country music as a genre and the current industry, however I believe country music is a more complex picture. Much of this I hope to explore throughout the next three years in this blog, my thesis and my radio show. I don’t have all the answers yet, but I will provide two opening thoughts for now: 

1.    Social class:

It is worth bearing in mind the way in which class and particularly the figure of the white working class is figured as a way for middle class listeners and listeners of other genres to scapegoat their own homophobia, racism and bigotry that exists in society at large.

2.    Country’s actual audiences

Dolly Parton clearly has a large LGBT+ fanbase and indeed there are studies that indicate country music’s popularity worldwide across different groups of people.  

So country music and Dolly Parton herself offer a useful way to engage with and offer constructive challenge to ongoing social, academic and political debates. Most notably the master narrative around LGBT+ lives that in order to be happy LGBT+ people must leave their family home and move to a large metropolitan city (London, Brighton, San Francisco, New York to name a few). Further, with Brexit and Donald Trump we see people caricature and misrepresent the white working class and former industrial and ‘left behind’ areas of these countries, and by extension misunderstand country music as well. Most importantly of all, the quality and variety of Dolly Parton’s music itself, makes it worthy of study. From bluegrass ballads, to disco; folk-inspired country to country-pop anthems, Dolly Parton’s material is socially conscious; has a powerful knack for telling stories; and sung with a voice that can fill you with warmth one minute and leave your heart aching the next. (Listen to Dolly Parton’s I will Always Love You and you’ll hear just that!)

I aim to produce a new blog each month, and PhDolly radio show will air every Saturday at 5pm on Newcastle Student Radio, and my PhD will be at least three years away (but I hope that my studies should inform my content on here!) So if nothing else, I hope you will give Dolly Parton and country music another listen, and engage in dialogue with me along the way!

For more PhDolly content follow me on social media:

Instagram: james.barker.phdolly 

Twitter: PhDolly
Newcastle Student Radio (NSR): http://thisisnsr.co.uk