still foxy after all these years (and with enhanced hooters)
Dolly Parton - Jolene
The White Stripes - Jolene
The White Stripes - Jolene (live) - from the Blackpool dvd
This song “Jolene” by Dolly Parton is another cover that’s near and dear to my heart as much because of the way I encountered it as the song itself. Let’s go back, way back, back into time, back to the fall of 2001. The previous six months had been a heady period for King Koopa: I graduated from college; I backpacked around Europe for a month; I came back and dated my high school crush and after the dream became a not-as-perfect-as-I-thought reality I dumped my high school crush; I became gainfully employed at the same company I still work for; I bought a convertible; I experienced 9/11; and, I saw the White Stripes at a tiny second-floor club in Bloomington on a hot Indian summer night. But, before I can tell you about seeing the White Stripes, let’s go back about another 2 weeks when I went and visited the american mastodon at his college. I'd just arrived and we were sitting around, talking about music and what we’d been listening to lately, and he pulls out this Dolly Parton record and was like, “Dude, you gotta hear this song.” Music prick that I am, I was skeptical at best. After some knob turning and button pushing on the second-hand stereo, this stunningly beautiful acoustic guitar lick and drum beat comes lilting out of the hi-fi. It was “Jolene” and it was a great song, and I was really curious how he’d found it. Did he wade through piles of bargain bin Dolly records full of Conway Twitty duets and Glen Campbell covers to find this? I think he said his brother turned him on to it. Now let’s fast forward 2 weeks, back to the White Stripes show. The American Mastodon organized a trip to see them and we met the anonymous “Laura A” down in Bloomington. (I give credit where it’s due: The AM declared the White Stripes the next Nirvana; I said no way, they’re good, but it takes a whole scene to create another Nirvana. -- Enter The Strokes and the garage band scene --
Until the truth comes out and the AM is set free, enjoy three very different versions of this song, 1) The pastoral, catfight-ish original, 2) The studio b-side version by the White Stripes, and 3) The live version from their somewhat newly released dvd which I haven’t seen yet, but I’m sure is kickass. The live version is so raw (but sound quality-wise it's great) it takes me back to that night. Goose-bump-inducing raw talent, raw emotion, the whole shootin match…It was really neat.
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3 comments:
Since the American Mastodon refuses to even attempt to clear his name for the nefarious crime of musical misrepresentation, I have no choice but to declare him guilty by the sheer unlikelyhood of his innocence. Although, he is currently out of my jurisdiction, he will be charged in absentia.
These are the crimes of which I stand accused. I do not expect those who have led lives different than mine, whose circumstances and lots in life were and are augmented by that special priveledge afforded to the upper classes, to believe or understand the actions that I may or may not have taken during that night, or the nights preceeding it. You can look around this courtroom and ask the people who know me - and most of them here do know me quite well - if I am a good man. They will tell you that I am, and knowing this much relieves me of the obligation of proving to this court of blogger law my innocence or my guilt, for my righteousness sets me free, and it is you who are in the shackles of guilt - you who has succumbed to the dark and evil heart of the cynic.
This is all to say that those tears you saw streaming down my cheeks were real, and they're authenticity, though not proving my innocence, certainly hampers the prosecution's case to a tremendous degree.
Usually, I don't ask for quarter, nor do I give it. But, I've been in a quarter-giving mood all day for whatever reason, so count yourself lucky. All charges are dropped.
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