Music Monday: Dolly Edition

National treasure Dolly Parton continues to cement her status as one of the very few truly universally beloved living celebrities (see also: Betty White, Tom Hanks and The Rock). Last week she came out in support of Black Lives Matter, of course, because it’s the right thing to do. In her Billboard profile, not only did Dolly support BLM, she supported it while saying, “Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!” 

She was also ahead of the curve when it came to renaming/removing racist artifacts from the Civil War era. Two years ago she renamed her Dollywood attraction the Dixie Stampede to Dolly Parton’s Stampede. Why?

“When they said ‘Dixie’ was an offensive word, I thought, ‘Well, I don’t want to offend anybody. This is a business. We’ll just call it The Stampede.’ As soon as you realize that [something] is a problem, you should fix it. Don’t be a dumbass. That’s where my heart is. I would never dream of hurting anybody on purpose.”

Goddamn, I love that lady. So here’s one of her best, “Jolene,” performed at a time when we could still stand shoulder-to-shoulder together in a seemingly endless crowd of humanity without worrying about how horribly this presidential administration has botched a global pandemic that has already killed some 170,000 Americans and counting. Plus, it’s just a great song. Happy Monday, kittens.