The final song I’ll feature from the upcoming Dolly Parton anthology series Heartstrings is ‘JJ Sneed,’ a nice counterpart to ‘Jolene.’
While ‘Jolene’ depicted a woman deathly afraid that a temptress would steal away her man, ‘JJ Sneed’ gives us a narrator who sees her man tempted by another woman and responds by shooting him dead. I guess that’s… progress?
Our next song from the upcoming Dolly Parton anthology series Heartstrings is ‘Down From Dover,’ which first appeared on the 1970 album The Fairest of Them All.
While the album performed well both commercially and critically, this song proved controversial. It tells the story of an unwed pregnant waiting in vain for the father of her baby to return to her from Dover. Things don’t end well.
Like yesterday’s track, ‘Sugar Hill’ appears on Dolly Parton’s 2002 album Halos & Horns. Dolly has released 50 studio albums in total, starting in 1967.
This sweet song follows a couple from childhood through getting married and having children of their own. In a nice bit of casting, the older lovers in the Heartstrings episode based on this song will be played by Patricia Wettig and Timothy Busfield, who played a married couple on the 80s show Thirtysomething.
Another episide of the upcoming Dolly Parton anthology series, ‘These Old Bones,’ stars Kathleen Turner as an old fortune teller who meets her long-lost daughter (spoiler!).
This song has Dolly switching roles between the old crone and the young girl, giving the former a creaky voice that shows off her acting chops but doesn’t go down so easy in song form. It’ll be interesting to see what Turner does with the role.
Proving there is no idea that won’t eventually end up as NetFlix programming, premiering on the platform this November is Heartstrings, an anthology series based on the songs of Dolly Parton.
Each of the first season’s eight episodes will be introduced by Ms. Parton and follow the plot of one of her many country tunes. Dolly plays a role in the first episode, based on perhaps her most well-known and beloved hit, ‘Jolene.’
