Radiolab - Dolly Parton's America: Sad Ass Songs

We will always love you, Dolly.

Duration: 1h 8m
Broadcast on: 28 Aug 2026
Audio Format: other

The world lost a legend recently, and we wanted in some small way to pay tribute to the great Dolly Parton. So we’re playing you an episode from a series we had a small part in back in 2017, Dolly Parton’s America.

The series kicked off with a simple question: How did the queen of the boob joke become a feminist icon? Helen Morales, author of “Pilgrimage to Dollywood,” gave us a stern directive – look at the lyrics! So we dive into Dolly’s discography, starting with the early period of what Dolly calls “sad ass songs” to find remarkably prescient words of female pain, slut-shaming, domestic violence, and women being locked away in asylums by cheating husbands. We explore how Dolly took the centuries-old tradition of the Appalachian “murder ballad”—an oral tradition of men singing songs about brutally killing women—and flipped the script, singing from the woman’s point of view. And as her career progresses, the songs expand beyond the pain to tell tales of leaving abuse behind.

How can such pro-woman lyrics come from someone who despises the word feminism? Best to let Dolly tell you herself.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Jad Abumrad and Shima Oliaee
Produced by - Jad Abumrad
with help from - W. Harry Fortuna
Original music from - Alex Overington
Sound design contributed by - Alex Overington
and Edited by - Suzie Lechtenberg

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We're listening to RadioLab from WNYC. Hey, this is RadioLab, I'm Soren Wheeler. We hear at the show, like so many other people out there are thinking about Dolly Parton right now, taking this moment to look back at an incredible songwriter, musician icon. You know, we've told stories here at the show about all kinds of topics and ideas and people, and Dolly has been sort of an interesting touch point for us in a lot of ways. Back in 2008, in the pop music episode, we talked about the global impact of her music. We featured a song that she wrote for our sister show, More Perfect, about the 19th Amendment. And as many of you know, our founder and original host, Jada Merad, produced a whole nine part series about her, her life, her music, and about her uniquely expansive appeal to people of all walks of life around the world. And one of the amazing things about Dolly Parton is how she was able to connect with so many millions of people in such an intimate and meaningful way. And I think we're all seeing that this week as stories come out about her and we reflect on her life. And as someone who's worked on those stories, it's impossible not to be sort of knocked on your ass by what she has done. And the example that she set as a person standing in the same world that we're all standing in and speaking out about it with a poetic clarity and honesty and resilience and dance and smile. So as you might have guessed, I wanted to play you one of the episodes from the series, the first one, in fact. But before I get to that, I want to share one small, but maybe a very telling example of the way Dolly has impacted this show and the people who work here because we very recently hired a new producer on staff, Joe Strogass. And she told me a little story about Dolly that I want to share with you here. How old are you in this picture? I was 12 and I have, I still have my braces, I have a little shock of green hair. Yeah, which I died with Kool-Aid. It's a great day. But given the story, you were in a band? No. No, no. So my voice teacher had a band and I recorded some songs with them, one of the songs being a cover of Jolene and we had this recording, which my mom didn't even tell me, but she must have found like Dolly's foundation or team online where you can just send fan mail. And she mailed them or emailed them a link to my cover and must have said something like my 12 year old daughter is such a big fan of you. Here's her comment, Jolene, didn't -- So your mom sends off a link. She sends it behind my back and then we get this huge piece of mail a few months later in one of those big orange envelopes. Open it up and there's this autographed photo of Dolly Parton. She's wearing this awesome green outfit. Her boobs look amazing. I don't think I can say that on here. And like, it's so funny to receive that as a 12 year old too because I'm like in this pure awkward phase and she looks like an icon and a diva. She is an icon and a diva. Yeah.

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We will always love you, Dolly.