Jolene Songwriting Credits by Dolly Parton

Jolene is the ninth studio album by Dolly Parton, released in February 1974 on RCA Records and produced by Bob Ferguson. It contains the title track that became Parton's signature song and one of the most analyzed pieces of songwriting in popular music, a first-person plea from a woman to a rival for her husband's affection in which the narrator's self-deprecation and the rival's physical description combine to create a character study of unusual emotional complexity. Parton wrote all original material, including 'Jolene' (her second-ever number-one country single, spending three weeks at the top of the Billboard Country chart and crossing to the Billboard Hot 100), 'I Will Always Love You' (which she had recorded as a single the previous year and which reached number one on the country chart before Whitney Houston's 1992 cover transformed it into a pop standard), and 'Early Morning Breeze.' 'I Will Always Love You' is among the most consequential songs in Parton's catalog: she wrote it for Porter Wagoner when leaving his television show, and its simultaneous personal sincerity and commercial craft represent the combination that distinguishes her best writing. The album reached number one on the Billboard Country Albums chart, Parton's first number-one album; it has been certified platinum in the United States. Jolene stands alongside Coat of Many Colors as the clearest statement of Parton's gifts as a songwriter: empathy, specificity, and the ability to extract universal emotion from a specific personal situation.