The name “Beyoncé” has seemingly been on the tip of everyone’s tongue since last Friday when the singer unveiled her “country album,” Cowboy Carter, the second act in a genre-jumping series of LPs that began with 2022’s dance music collection, Renaissance. Included among the chorus of voices weighing in on the latest Beyoncé creative tangent are two artists whose songs she covered on the new album, Dolly Parton and Paul McCartney.
On Cowboy Carter track “DOLLY P”, Dolly Parton herself checks in over the introduction to her iconic “Jolene” to relate her world to Beyoncé’s: “You know that hussie with the good hair you sing about? Reminded me of someone I knew back when, except she has flamin’ locks of auburn hair, bless her heart. Just a hair of a different color, but it hurts just the same.”
Bey’s vitriolic recreation of “Jolene” follows in full, with lyrics updated to change the tone of the narrator’s pleas from “begging” to “f— around and find out.” She takes a country classic and makes it hers, and the way her life lays so neatly across the iconic song’s thematic framework is an a-ha moment of its own.
Related: Dolly Parton Covers “Let It Be” With Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr For Rockstar LP [Listen]
In a social media post the day the album was released, Dolly praised Beyoncé’s “JOLENE” update (on which Parton remains the sole credited songwriter): “Wow I just heard Jolene. Beyoncé is giving that girl some trouble and she deserves it!” Parton, whose voice appears at various times on the album, is quite familiar with stepping outside her stylistic comfort zone: Thanks to an amusing saga surrounding her 2022 nomination for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Parton recruited an all-star cast of rocker friends for her “rock album,” Rockstar.
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Cowboy Carter‘s recreation of another famous song, Paul McCartney/John Lennon-penned Beatles favorite “Blackbird”(“BLACKBIIRD”), further goads would-be deniers of its country credentials. Sure, the original version of this song isn’t a “country song,” but it’s hard to categorically say it’s “not country” when it features vocal contributions from a slew of rising Black women in country (Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy). The cover choice perhaps relates more closely to Beyoncé’s own journey—and latest “act”—than the album’s running “country” thread: McCartney has noted on various occasions that the song’s titular “Blackbird” should be interpreted as “Black girl” and its moving lyrics as a reference to 1957’s Little Rock Crisis and the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. It’s a song about societal racism, defying naysayers, and seizing a moment with grace—theme’s to which Beyoncé can clearly relate.
Related: Is The Beyoncé Country Album Actually Country? [Review/Stream]
Paul McCartney on Thursday made a post on social media about the Beyoncé “Blackbird” revamp. Alongside a photo of him and Beyoncé together, he wrote, “I am so happy with [Beyoncé’s version of my song ‘Blackbird’. I think she does a magnificent version of it and it reinforces the civil rights message that inspired me to write the song in the first place,” he wrote. “I think Beyoncé has done a fab version and would urge anyone who has not heard it yet to check it out. You are going to love it!”
He continued, “I spoke to her on FaceTime and she thanked me for writing it and letting her do it. I told her the pleasure was all mine and I thought she had done a killer version of the song. When I saw the footage on the television in the early 60s of the black girls being turned away from school, I found it shocking and I can’t believe that still in these days there are places where this kind of thing is happening right now. Anything my song and Beyoncé’s fabulous version can do to ease racial tension would be a great thing and makes me very proud.”
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Cowboy Carter, the new album from Beyoncé, is now streaming. Revisit our review of the album and its country bona fides here.
Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter [Full Album]
The post Paul McCartney, Dolly Parton Weigh In On Beyoncé Covers Of Their Songs On ‘Cowboy Carter’ appeared first on L4LM.
