Culture

Lil Nas X’s “Jolene” Cover Is Queer Country Joy at Its Finest


 

This post originally appeared on Vogue

Back in the days before Montero, before glowing New York Times profiles and shutting down the Met Gala red carpet, Lil Nas X was a country rap star, with his 2018 hit “Old Town Road” climbing the charts and making him the first openly LGBTQ+ person ever to win a Country Music Association award. Now, Lil Nas X is paying tribute to his country-music roots with a stripped-down, compulsively listenable cover of Dolly Parton’s 1974 hit “Jolene.” Watch the full video below:

Lil Nas X isn’t the first contemporary artist to cover “Jolene”—Miley Cyrus, the White Stripes and Pentatonix have all had the honor—but not since Parton sang the song herself have I heard it imbued with so much sentiment. Lil Nas X is preternaturally gifted when it comes to turning queer subtext into text, and to see him take a country classic written from the point of view of a straight woman and adapt it seamlessly, begging the fictional Jolene not to take his man, is downright delicious.

The video’s little flourishes, which include a crystallized microphone and flowers and butterflies used as props, add to its overall effect, but Lil Nas X singing Dolly Parton would likely induce goosebumps even if he were doing it a cappella at a bar’s karaoke night in Georgia. Hopefully, someday Parton will take a page out of Billy Ray Cyrus’s book and collaborate with Lil Nas X; can you even imagine them duetting on “Islands in the Stream”?

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