The passing of the benevolent country queen, and American icon, leaves a hole in a coat of many colors.
Written by Felix Kalvesmaki
Image courtesy of AP Photo / Tsugufumi Matsumoto
I saw a clip of Dolly from maybe the ’80s on my timeline the day she passed. For the first time, I felt like I was watching historical footage, something from the archives, as opposed to a flashback of a still-living legend. I remember when I was younger, when these sorts of titans would prove their humanity, and being unable to wrap my head around the worldwide mourning. When Michael Jackson died—I know, sorry, but I was hardly nine—I watched the world stop for a second. I didn’t know what benzodiazepines were, I hadn’t even gotten to experience Thriller yet. But I knew what my parents and the newscasters looked like when they were shocked and devastated. I felt empathy sadness, but I didn’t understand how one mourns for a person they never met.
I felt Dolly’s passing in my throat first. I felt ill. My dog had a stomach bug and I thought I might throw up alongside her. The sickness moved to my stomach, kicked down underfoot of a silent whimper. I texted about ten people, and another texted me. Alone in my apartment I felt the world reverberate with an awful gloom. A celebrity death has never hit me quite like this. I don’t think I’m alone.
What do you say about the death of the matriarch? “t’sI so shocking and sad” was what I started with. A fine place to begin, I guess, but of course it doesn’t capture the weight or the gravity. I feel pangs of sadness when a celebrity whose work I enjoyed dies, I feel a slight grief in knowing whatever they last sang, or played, or wrote, would be the last of it. Dolly felt different, mainly because I never considered she could die in the first place. It feels like she wasn’t supposed to. At the very least, she has one last gift locked away for us to open in a couple decades.
One thing I want to honor Dolly for is her welcoming persona. She was chipper, clever, and kind in everything I ever saw her do. All through screens, of course, but it never felt that way. But beyond the way she spoke to others and how she smiled, she made a home for myself and many others in country music. Most of what I’ve known boils down to post-9/11 radio country, about beer and F-150s or Jesus and Alabama. And that’s all well and good, I’ve enjoyed a Hardy song once or twice. But Dolly not only embraced her queer fanbase, she called herself a drag queen without a lick of shame. It’s no wonder her presence spawned Trixie Mattel into existence, among many others. Dolly’s heaviest costume probably outweighs Trixie’s… and RuPaul’s, for that matter.
What’s more, she never let you forget where she was from. The south gets a lot of flak from those up north, and some of it for good reason. But no one made me feel more proud of the southern United States than Dolly. For all of the national badmouthing, gerrymandering, and, yeah, material oppression that comes from living there, there’s at least some truth to southern hospitality. No one embodied that hospitality, to anyone and everyone, like she did. Not in country music, maybe not even in this country. She welcomed the world into Tennessee, into her loves, her fears, her joys and thorns, with each record and performance. Dolly was a wonderful celebrity, but an even better singer. And, hell, she was a better still songwriter, All that really says something; she was pretty singular at all three.
But Dolly never forgot what made her. And, in fact, she gave it back in spades, and money, and books, and an amusement park for good measure. She sang for the working man, “barely gettin’ by / all takin’ and no givin’.” She also gave to him (and her, and them). A lot of celebrities do charity, or “philanthropy,” but Dolly wasn’t a blank check to a bland charity. She cared about the people who helped her become who she is, the “tramp” she’d tell the world she modeled her aesthetics after. She probably even cared about Jolene, after everything.
She was remarkable for many reasons; she wrote Jolene’s song and “I Will Always Love You” in the same day, she was damn good in Steel Magnolias and 9 to 5, and she never gave a dull interview. Chief among them, for me, was how she demonstrated that fame and celebrity and money can coexist with kindness, generosity, and heart. She was a true role model if there ever was one. Beloved across the country, the only thing I’ve ever agreed with the Trump administration on is that the flags needed to fly at half-mast. A true American icon whose name made me a bit prouder to share the nation with her, even in our dark days. Her passing makes for yet another.
I want to say I’m worried we’ll never have another like her, but I’m not. I’m certain, really. The future may hold further generous celebrities, further bedazzled guitar maestros, and further southern belles with a songbird for a heart. But there will never, ever, be another Dolly Parton. The one and only has truly left us, with only our memory and the archive. She gave us so much to be grateful for, in song, in person. But to be blunt, it still fucking stings. Her world quit turning, and mine stalled on its axis for a moment there too. I understand now, how one can grieve for a famous stranger.
