Jolene

This will be a less than engaged blog post, but forgive me. We all get one, do we not?

I was reading some of Shakespeare's sonnets, some of the selections in which Shakespeare really debases himself with the pretext of being in love, and I couldn't help but feel like Shakespeare was just not right in some respect. I mean, It feels noble to think of the lofty heights to which one would aspire in order to bring back some heavenly token of affection for their lover, but it is quite another, much more sickening and perverse thing to think about the depths to which one would descend as well. I was trying to think of a modern example of a similar debasement in the name of love, and one of my favorite songs of all time came to mind: "Jolene" by Dolly Parton. Laugh if you will, but Jolene is a figure mythological par excellence. "Your beauty is beyond compare/ with flaming locks of auburn hair/ and ivory skin and eyes of emerald green. Your smile is like a breath of spring, your voice is soft like summer rain, and I cannot compete with you Jolene." Jolene sounds in this first verse of the song like a praise-worthy nymph, but how much darker she turns out to be. Certainly she is more of a goddess of the underworld type. She is beautiful, as any goddess should be, but dangerous as well. insofar as the figure of the tripartite goddess is concerned, she plays the role of the dark side with great efficacy, most clearly representing the temptress: "He talks about you in his sleep/ There's nothing I can do to keep/ From crying when he calls your name, Jolene/ And I can easily understand/ How you could easily take my man/ But you don't know what he means to me, Jolene." If Ever I thought Shakespeare had brought himself to the lowest sphere of being for his lover, Dolly Parton of all people, up and proves me wrong. The song Jolene is a model of what the Shakespearean sonnet can become in the hands of a modern lover who is equally as sincere, and willing to go one step further than even Shakespeare himself in vying for the affections of their lover. To address ones problem face to face, to submit to the superiority of another lover, this is far lower than pretending to be the "Spaniel" of some lover, as Helena puts it. "I had to have this talk with you/ My happiness depends on you/ And whatever you decide to do, Jolene." And you thought you loved your significant otter? Would you not just cast her or him off if they were being unfaithful and saying the name of their illegitimate otter in their sleep? Othello up and kills Desdemona just because of an unconfirmed rumor about the act! 

I guess the main point of this was to show that, although Shakespeare has certainly been the recognized epitome of the lover/poet for the English language, he has not gone to such lengths as to entirely monopolize the language of love. Although the instances in which someone outdoes Shakespeare are few and far betwixt, they are there, serving as a reminder that genius, or at least sincerity, can come from even the unlikeliest of sources.  
Jolene (Alternate High Fidelity Version)