Have you seen the old photo of Dolly Parton flying around social media right now?  It’s a photobooth shot she took in 1966 when she was 20.

Everyone’s reposting it and making the same joke.  How could “Jolene” or ANY woman have been a threat?

Dolly Parton in a Photo Booth, 1960s. pic.twitter.com/hdj7Aq06Na

— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) March 11, 2024

Dolly was in her mid-20’s when she recorded “Jolene”, where she begs a woman who’s prettier, “Please don’t take my man.”

She wrote it about a bank teller who kept flirting with her husband.  But she got the name from a little girl she signed an autograph for.  It stuck in her head because she’d never heard that name before. In other words, it’s a mish-mash of a few different things.  There wasn’t really some hussy named Jolene who tried to steal her guy.

Although, here’s a fun theory . . .

One person reposted the old pic and asked what if Dolly IS “Jolene” . . . and she “wrote the song from the point of view of every OTHER woman in her town.”