‘JOLENE’ by Beyoncé - Lyrics & Meaning

Beyoncé's momentous first ever country album, Renaissance Act II: COWBOY CARTER, has undoubtedly been one of the most hotly anticipated projects of 2024 - across all genres.

But within the project, Beyoncé's rumoured cover of Dolly Parton's legendary 1973 anthem, ‘JOLENE’, was the song fans were looking forward to delving into more than any other.

Originally hinted at by Dolly in an interview ahead of COWBOY CARTER's release, listeners had assumed Beyoncé's version of ’JOLENE’ would be a word-for-word cover.

However, to fans’ delight, when midnight struck on March 28 and they eagerly pressed play on the track, they found that Beyoncé had put her own fascinating spin on Dolly's hit.

The playful voicemail from Dolly Parton in ‘DOLLY P’, which precedes ’JOLENE’ on the COWBOY CARTER tracklist, sets the mood for Beyoncé's take on the much-loved song.

Dolly teases that Beyoncé's version is a thinly veiled dig at ‘Becky with the good hair’, who she first referenced on ‘Sorry’ from Lemonade, and is allegedly the woman with whom JAY-Z supposedly cheated - a scandal which largely inspired the 2019 album.

Against a light-hearted fusion of a wonderfully twangy acoustic guitar, an energising beat and a flurry of jubilant claps, Beyoncé gives ‘JOLENE’ an assured ambience.

Beyoncé's trademark charismatic vocals coalesce with the levity of the composition to transform Dolly Parton's pleading, self-effacing ode into a swaggering - but unmistakably fierce - warning shot fired across a potential adulterer's bows.

“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm warnin’ you, don't come for my man (Jolene)
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Don't take the chance because you think you can”

Beyoncé interpolates the infectious melody for Dolly Parton's version of ’Jolene’, but adjusts the language to make it more assertive. Instead of ‘I'm begging of you, please don't take my man’, Beyoncé croons, ‘I'm warnin’ you, don't come for my man’.

Similarly, Beyoncé swaps the lyric for ‘Please don't take him just because you can’ in favour of ‘Don't take the chance because you think you can’. She's rebuking the antagonist and commanding them to stop flirting with her man, rather than asking them out of fear that they'll be successful again in winning him over.

Beyoncé doesn't even entertain the thought that ‘Jolene’ will be able to do so in her rendition, phrasing her warning as ‘Don't take the chance because you think you can’. Beyoncé implies that, even if Jolene doesn't heed her words and tries to work her way into her husband's heart, she has no doubts that he will stand by his wife.

As is hinted at in the previous song on the album, ‘DOLLY P’, ‘JOLENE’ is seemingly directed at ‘Becky with the good hair’, the character from Beyoncé's Lemonade stand-out, ‘Sorry’. The song deals with JAY-Z's reported infidelity, and given Dolly Parton's references on ‘DOLLY P’ to ‘that hussy with the good hair you sing about’, it seems Beyoncé's take on ‘JOLENE’ is aimed at the same person.

“You’re beautiful, beyond compare
Takes more than beauty and seductive stares
To come between a family and a happy man
Jolene, I'm a woman too
Thе games you play are nothing new
So you don't want no hеat with me, Jolene
We've been deep in love for twenty years
I raised that man, I raised his kids
I know my man better than he knows himself (Yeah, what?)
I can easily understand
Why you're attracted to my man
But you don't want this smoke, so shoot your shot with someone else (You heard me)”

Beyoncé keeps the opening line of this verse the same as it is in Dolly's original, before proceeding to make the rest of the song her own. She cautions Jolene that she knows what she's up to, and that she even appreciates why she would want to go after her man - but that she should think again before trying her luck. Beyoncé heartwarmingly underlines that her and JAY-Z have been in love for over two decades, with the couple believed to have started their relationship in 2000.

“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm warnin' you, woman, find you your own man
Jolene, I know I’m a queen, Jolene
I’m still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisianne (Don't try me)”

She reiterates the warning of the first hook, but edits the lyrics again slightly, demanding that Jolene must ‘find you your own man’. We get a reference here to Beyoncé's heritage, something she's cited before on tracks such as ‘Formation’, with the grandparents on her mother's side being French-speaking Louisiana Creoles.

Beyoncé sings proudly about how she too is a Creole, as well as touching on ‘AMERIICAN REQUIEM’ about how she's the ‘grandbaby of a moonshine man [from] Gadsden, Alabama’. This ties in with the key theme of COWBOY CARTER: that Beyoncé has deeper roots in country music than most artists today, in turn exposing the racial undertones of criticism levelled at her for venturing into the genre.

The term ‘banjee’ has its origins in New York, and tends to have connotations of macho, tough members of the Hip Hop community. It's used here by Beyoncé to emphasise how things could get nasty for Jolene if she continues to pursue her husband.

“There’s a thousand girls in every room
That act as desperate as you do
You a bird, go on and sing your tune, Jolene (What?)
I had to have this talk with you
'Cause I hate to have to act the fool
Your peace depends on how you move, Jolene”

Beyoncé dismisses the antagonist as merely one of the ‘thousand girls in every room’ that fawn over her husband, labelling her flirtatious behaviour as ‘desperate’. She then describes Jolene as a ‘bird’, before telling her to ‘sing your tune’, perhaps implying that she's a metaphorically caged bird that is trying to gain her freedom through the status a relationship with Beyoncé's husband would bring.

The line ‘Your peace depends on how you move, Jolene’ is the keystone of the song, with Beyoncé delivering the most menacing threat yet to the would-be-cheater in question.

“Me and my man crossed those valleys
Highs and lows and everything between
Good deeds roll in like tumblin' weeds
I sleep good, happy
'Cause you can’t dig up our planted seeds
I know my man's gon' stand by me, breathin' in my gentle breeze (Ah)
I crossed those valleys
Highs and lows and everything between
Good deeds roll in like tumblin' weeds
Good and happy
'Cause you can't dig up them planted seeds
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Imma stand by her, she will stand by me, Jolene”

Beyoncé mentions the rollercoaster ride her and her husband have been on in their relationship, portraying the various highs and lows of their marriage through the imagery of valleys they've had to travel through. She describes the peace of mind she now enjoys, thanks to her ‘good deeds’ - possibly a nod to the way Beyoncé forgave JAY-Z for his alleged misdemeanours - which come as naturally and as freely to her as ‘tumblin’ weeds’, a staple of any classic Western film.

Beyoncé continues to double-down on her point through the extension of this landscape-inspired imagery, emphasising that the seeds of their love are far too deeply buried into the ground for Jolene to be able to uproot them with her attempted seduction.

At the end of this verse, Beyoncé introduces her husband's perspective for added confirmation, as he echoes her sentiment (‘Imma stand by her, she will stand by me, Jolene’).

“Imma stand by him, he gon' stand by me
(Imma stand by her, she gon' stand by me)
Imma stand by him, he gon' stand by me, Jolene”

This is a potential homage to Tammy Wynette's revered 1968 song, ‘Stand By Your Man’, which encourages women to remain loyal to their husbands despite the challenges that arise as part of a long-term relationship. Beyoncé uses this phrase to celebrate the trust and commitment that underpins her marriage, making ‘JOLENE’ feel like the uplifting, serene sequel to the fiery, angsty ‘Sorry’ from Lemonade.

Beyoncé teased that there would be some exciting, unexpected moments on COWBOY CARTER, and it's safe to say her reinterpretation of ‘JOLENE’ was one of these, “I have a few surprises on the album, and have collaborated with some brilliant artists who I deeply respect. I hope that you can hear my heart and soul, and all the love and passion that I poured into every detail and every sound”.

In an interview with Knox News, Dolly Parton hinted that Beyoncé had covered ‘Jolene’, expressing her delight at the pop megastar's foray into country music, “I love her! She's a beautiful girl and a great singer. We've kind of sent messages back and forth through the years. And she and her mother were like fans, and I was always touched that they were fans, and I always thought she was great”.

The Queen of Country Music defended Queen B from resistance she faced as she moved into the genre, “A lot of people don’t realize Beyoncé is a country girl. She’s from Texas. I think we belong wherever we can do good, and her song is number one across every chart in the whole world, I think. So, I mean, who can argue with that?”

“(Jolene)
(Jolene)

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm warnin’ you, don't come for my man (Jolene)
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Don't take the chance because you think you can

You’re beautiful, beyond compare
Takes more than beauty and seductive stares
To come between a family and a happy man
Jolene, I'm a woman too
Thе games you play are nothing new
So you don't want no hеat with me, Jolene
We've been deep in love for twenty years
I raised that man, I raised his kids
I know my man better than he knows himself (Yeah, what?)
I can easily understand
Why you're attracted to my man
But you don't want this smoke, so shoot your shot with someone else (You heard me)

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm warnin' you, woman, find you your own man
Jolene, I know I’m a queen, Jolene
I’m still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisianne (Don't try me)

There’s a thousand girls in every room
That act as desperate as you do
You a bird, go on and sing your tune, Jolene (What?)
I had to have this talk with you
'Cause I hate to have to act the fool
Your peace depends on how you move, Jolene

Me and my man crossed those valleys
Highs and lows and everything between
Good deeds roll in like tumblin' weeds
I sleep good, happy
'Cause you can’t dig up our planted seeds
I know my man's gon' stand by me, breathin' in my gentle breeze (Ah)
I crossed those valleys
Highs and lows and everything between
Good deeds roll in like tumblin' weeds
Good and happy
'Cause you can't dig up them planted seeds
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Imma stand by her, she will stand by me, Jolene

Imma stand by him, he gon' stand by me
(Imma stand by her, she gon' stand by me)
Imma stand by him, he gon' stand by me, Jolene”

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