Part 3
The Beyoncé Thing
Now, you might be thinking: what about Beyoncé? Didn't that bother her? Let's be precise. Beyoncé covered 'Jolene' on Cowboy Carter (2024). Dolly made a cameo appearance on the album. And when she heard Beyoncé's version, she assumed it would be the traditional read—the same pleading, the same desperation. Then she heard it and thought, 'Wow, boy, she put a lot into that.' She was proud. She called it a great album. She did not clutch the original like a grudge. She wasn't sitting in a corner muttering about the sanctity of the 1973 version. She was thrilled. Because for Dolly, a song isn't a museum piece. It's a living thing. It's meant to be passed around, reinterpreted, taken apart, and put back together. That's the whole point. She didn't say, 'How dare she?' She said, 'Wow, boy, she put a lot into that.' That's the difference between a legend and a gatekeeper. Dolly is a legend. She doesn't need to gatekeep. She's secure. She called it a great album. She didn't add a caveat. She didn't say, 'But the original is better.' She just said it was great.
But you're probably wondering: does the original still matter if someone else takes it apart? Here's Dolly's rule, and it's a good one: writers love hearing their songs interpreted another way. 'That's always a big thrill to any writer,' she says, 'to hear somebody else do your songs.' She's not sitting around waiting for an apology. People ask her what she thought, as if she's owed some kind of grievance. She's not. She's the happiest person in the room. She's been on the other side of this before. Whitney Houston turned 'I Will Always Love You' into a global phenomenon in The Bodyguard (1992, 129 minutes, directed by Mick Jackson). Dolly has always talked about that as a gift, not a theft. So when Beyoncé did 'Jolene,' she wasn't clutching pearls. She was proud. She called it a great album. That's the whole story. She didn't need to defend the original. The original can defend itself. And it does. Every time someone covers it, it gets a new life. That's not a threat. That's a legacy. She's not a gatekeeper. She's a gardener. She plants songs and watches them grow in other people's voices.
No Process, Just Laundry
So how does she write? There is no process. That's the process. She'll be doing laundry, basket down, guitar sitting there. Next thing you know, the basket is forgotten, the song is written, and the laundry maybe not. She'll hum a melody, capture it before it disappears, build a verse and a chorus around it. Sometimes she'll slap filler lyrics on just to fit the melody, then come back later to critique. It's messy. It's human. It's the opposite of a masterclass. It's a woman who writes between loads of laundry, between makeup sessions, between moments of real life. And that's exactly why the songs land. They're not workshopped to death. They're caught on the fly. They're not perfect. They're alive. She doesn't need a cabin in the woods. She doesn't need a bottle of whiskey. She needs a guitar and a few minutes. That's it. And she'll take it. She'll take the messy, the unfinished, the filler lyrics, and she'll turn it into something that lasts.
She keeps a notepad close. She writes in the kitchen. She writes in the makeup chair—she can knock out two or three songs while getting ready. The news and the TV are raw material. Everything is a song to her, and every situation she sees becomes one in her head. That's not a writer who waits for the muse. That's a writer who is the muse. She's always on. She's always listening. She's always turning the world into verses. You want to know why she doesn't get enough credit as a lyricist? Because she makes it look effortless. Because she makes it look like something she does in her sleep. But it's not sleep. It's work. It's the work she loves most. And she's been doing it since she was a kid. She doesn't need a special room. She doesn't need a ritual. She just needs to be alive and paying attention. The world is her notebook. That's why she doesn't get enough credit. Because it looks too easy. But easy is a lie. Easy is the result of decades of practice.
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Mama Made Me Play
This goes back to her mother. As a kid, she wrote love songs about things she had never lived—songs about people dying in wars, overheard adult talk turned into verses. Her mama was fascinated. She'd make any visitor sit down. 'Run and get your guitar,' she'd say. 'I want you to hear what this little young'un has wrote.' That audience is where the self-belief came from. That's the moment she learned that her words could make people stop and listen. That she could take the chaos of the world and turn it into something that mattered. She was a kid writing about war. She was a kid writing about love. She was a kid who had something to say. And her mama gave her a stage. A kitchen stage. A living room stage. But a stage nonetheless. That's how you build a songwriter. You don't send them to a conservatory. You make them play for the neighbors. That's the origin story. Not a record deal. Not a TV show. A mother who made her play for the neighbors.
