You know something dire is happening in the world if Dolly Parton’s feathers are ruffled. Dolly, an American sweetheart known for her blonde, bouffant hair, downhome, sweet and simple honesty (and a couple other big things), has released some songs from her upcoming rock album, Rockstar. And golly Dolly, are they ever feisty.
The fact that Dolly is releasing a rock ’n’ roll album at all points to a serious cultural reckoning. Dolly, now seventy-seven years old, is more known for such innocent hits as “Love Is like a Butterfly” and “Coat of Many Colors” than for having a black-leather edge associated with sex and drugs. Yet such are the times we live in.
At the ACM Awards a couple weeks ago, Dolly debuted “World on Fire” from Rockstar. Her huge skirt, of sorts, resembled an oversized parachute with an image of Earth emblazoned on it. The skirt billowed as Dolly’s fairy-like voice tinkled like a bell to the song’s ominous tune, foreboding:
Liar, liar the world’s on fire
Whatcha gonna do when it all burns down?
Fire, fire burning higher
Still got time to turn it all around.
The billowing world was swept away to reveal a petite but commanding Dolly dressed in a skintight black leather outfit sparkling with sequins (of course) and spiked studs — a far cry from the feminine lace and ruffles this southern lady has made her signature.
“Don’t get me started on politics,” Dolly continued to sing as flames shot up behind her.
Now how are we to live in a world like this
Greedy politicians, present and past
They wouldn’t know the truth if it bit ’em in the ass.
Powerful words from anyone, especially a performer who said as recently as 2019 that, “I don’t really like getting up on TV and saying political things.”
The Grist excitedly declares this song to be “a climate anthem — if you want it to be,” acknowledging that though “it’s difficult to say whether Dolly explicitly intended ‘World on Fire’ as a climate song,” Dolly “sits atop a burning world” in the song video, and “the lyrics, which, as usual, she wrote herself, evoke a certain sense of climate anxiety.”
When I first heard Dolly’s new song, I was most struck not by any sense of “climate anxiety,” but by a set of verses the Grist analysis ignores:
I don’t know what to think about us
When did we lose in God we trust
God Almighty, what we gonna do
If God ain’t listenin’ and we’re deaf too.
More than a lament about the climate — though that could, conceivably be part of it, as Dolly has said, “We’re just mistreating Mother Nature — that’s like being ugly to your mama” — “World on Fire” seems to be admonishing our country’s flight from God and religious virtue. Instead of denoting global warming, might those stage flames signify hell?
After all, another song from Rockstar continues the Revelationist theme of “World on Fire.” In “Don’t Make Me Come Down There,” Dolly has a dream about God “standing on a mountain top “looking down, around in such dismay.” She hears Him say,
My children, you had best beware
If you don’t pay attention, consequences will be dire
Don’t make me have to come down there
I’ve told you time and time again
You can’t disobey and hope to win
I am still the boss here in case there’s any doubt
You know I put you in this world and I can take you out.
Dolly is remaining typically tight-lipped on the specific message of her latest music. She acknowledged in a recent interview the politicians she’s fed up with are, “All of them, any of them. I don’t think any of them are trying hard enough… They worry more about their party than they do about the people.” And while it’s possible Dolly’s lyrics mean God is dismayed at us for not paying enough attention to the climate, in my experience, climate change activism and God don’t usually mix.
All we do know, for now, is that Dolly Parton is fired up, and politicians everywhere should take rock ’n’ roll Dolly as a wake-up call.
