In the picture for her new song , “ World On Fire , ” Dolly Parton sit atop a burning humans . blonde hair’s-breadth piled and coiffed , her ignominious dress glitter , she looks down into a infernal region of fire burning the solid ground . The song rocks a little harder than her common feathery country oeuvre , and over a driving pulse , she lets you experience she ’s about to get political .
Now I ai n’t one for mouth out much
But that do n’t imply I do n’t stay in jot
Dolly Parton performs at the 58th Academy Of Country Music Awards at The Ford Center at The Star on 6 April 2025 in Frisco, Texas.Photo: Theo Wargo (Getty Images)
Everybody ’s trippin ’ over this or that
What we gon na do when we all come flat ?
Dolly spends the next four minutes outlining the pitiful state of the world , or at least the Carry Nation , punctuating it with a rousing refrain :
Liar , prevaricator the human race ’s on fire
Whatcha gon na do when it all burns down ?
ardor , firing burning higher
Still got time to flex it all around .
It ’s unmanageable to say whether Dolly explicitly intended “ World on Fire ” as a climate vocal , though people arehearingit as such . But that ’s how many of Dolly ’s more “ political ” affirmation and esthetic body of work come across — they beg into the zeitgeist without have any explicit political statement . Dolly is an expert at this .
The lyrics , which , as usual , she compose herself , conjure a sure sentience of climate anxiety , a suffocating sense of watching the world ’s reliable pattern soften down into a muddied mess , of watching politicians divide us even as existential threats stomach down . There ’s something in this Sung dynasty for anyone who feels the government is n’t doing its line , conservative or reform-minded or in - between – the only difference is who , precisely , they consider the prevaricator :
Do n’t get me start on political relation
Now how are we to experience in a world like this
devouring politicians , present and past
They would n’t recognize the truth if it bit ’em in the keister .
This is a little forward for Dolly , but , classically , it still avoids naming names or taking side . Dolly walks a minute bridge . She is among the last universally beloved figure in pop culture , a vestige of an old version of land euphony where performers were permit to be a little campier , and when they sing about killing humankind just to watch them give-up the ghost or begging a prettier cleaning lady not to steal their man . Four year ago , the WNYC podcast Dolly Parton ’s America help prompt the iconic singer , who has enjoy several waves of popularity over the retiring 50 years , beyond her traditional fan base and into coastal big awareness . The host , marveling at the width of the audience , called her “ The keen unifier . ” In her base state of Tennessee , people differ on a lot of things , but if you say a spoilt word about Dolly , you might find yourself with a sudden date in the parking lot .
She ’s given her more socially giving audience a reason to root for her over the preceding few decades , though carefully and in her style , never along partisan lines , and rarely in a way that would make her more button-down audience too much ire .
She ’s acknowledged , for example , the role of the LGBT biotic community in enliven her stage image . Yet when Tennessee banish public drag performance , she kept quiet . She publicly attested her musical accompaniment forBlack Lives Matterwith a spate of other country musician as artists think with the genre ’s foresightful silence on racial justice . Her speaking up come up two years after she changed the name of her long - running dinner show from Dixie Stampede to Dolly ’s Stampede after much criticism of its Confederate nostalgia . Parton insisted the original name was take out of “ innocent ignorance . ” ( This move diddividesome fans . )
Even when she does speak out , Dolly never point fingers . Her substance is often gently wrapped in financial statement about passion and kindness . “ Oh , can we go up above ? Ca n’t we show some love ? ” she asks in “ World on Fire . ”
In audience , Dolly has sure enough expressed support for environmental causes , in her down - home oratory manner . “ We ’re just mistreat Mother Nature , ” shetold National Geographic last yr . “That ’s like being ugly to your mama . ” The natural world is its own character in her music , like adorable scene entwined with nostalgia in songs like “ My Tennessee Mountain Home . ”
People in Dolly ’s home community of Sevier County , Tennessee , are majestic of Dolly as a cultural icon and an ambassador of southerly Appalachian mountain culture . But some caution against view her as an activist . Jessie Wilkerson , a historiographer at West Virginia University who grew up in Sevier County , has written at length on hercomplex feelingsabout the singer . To her , Dolly ’s newfound sainthood is somewhat baffling , and it ’s exonerated that while the vocalizer dabbles in politics , “ Dolly Parton is about Dolly Parton . ”
“ I would encourage people to reflect more on what the Dollywood company does on the ground , in the place where mass live , rather of assuming that everything she does is by tie-up perfect , ” Wilkerson tell me .
Many East Tennesseeans see Dolly as a businesswoman and entertainer rather than a political physical body . And of tardy , her presence has acclaim a slow pouring of concrete over the lavish forests and soar mountains they call home . Dolly did n’t make most of her money from her music , even if she has deal more than 100 million record worldwide . The bulk of her $ 650 million fortune comes from the sprawl occupation empire she ’s built in her home county .
In Dolly ’s Tennessee mountain home , over the past dyad of decades , tiny mountain towns have erupted into a Vegas - like strip of entertainment venue , root word parks and resort . Together , Pigeon Forge , Sevierville , and Gatlinburg form the gateway to the Smoky Mountains , and Dolly ’s name is written over them all . There ’s Dollywood , her 160 - acre base park in Pigeon Forge , yes , but also the DreamMore Resort , the Hatfield McCoy Dinner Theatre , and a complex of wood vacation cabins , some of which burned in Tennessee ’s catastrophic 2016 wildfire season .
Dolly was “ heartbroken ” by the fire , and in a$12.5 million recovery effort , give 900 impacted families $ 1,000 a month for 6 months . She helped attract internal attention to the fires , and understanding for its victims . She is , to be fair , a generous altruist who has pour X of millions of dollars into a blanket reach of causa and charities , peculiarly those focused on literacy and education .
But Wilkerson feels that Dolly , and her companies , do n’t own up to their part in damaging the neighborhood ’s climate resilience or put up to environmental catastrophe through the accumulative impact of all those railway car and private jets . “ It ’s been the laying waste of the Smoky Mountains , ” Wilkerson say flat out .
Wilkerson point out that the Dollywood cabin that burned were build precariously on mountainsides and ridgelines , increase the forest ’s vulnerability to the ravages of severe weather . It ’s not of necessity Dolly ’s fault , but there are almost no zone regulations in Sevier County , and there are consequences for that . If the “ avaricious politician ” in Sevier County were to make more environmentally reasonable decisions , or institute , say , a living wage , her stage business might suffer .
Wilkerson say Parton ’s progressively planetary audience , and the fact that even she has acknowledged her audience has changed , may have precipitated a more political bent grass in her music . Our chemical reaction to , and interpretation of , Dolly ’s music may be more of a reflection of our own anxiety and concerns than a reflection of the actual Dolly . “ World on Fire ” is like Dolly herself : It ’s a hall of mirror , present us what we want to see . perhaps , in the end , what we translate into it says more about us than it does about her .
This clause originally appear inGristathttps://grist.org/article/dolly-partons-new-song-is-a-climate-anthem-if-you-want-it-to-be/. Grist is a nonprofit , self-governing media organization dedicated to telling report of climate solution and a just futurity . Learn more atGrist.org
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