Despacio will surprise you. The Balearic spirit that animates Despacio means that no genre is off limits so long as it serves the dancefloor. This is an account of one such surprise.
About halfway through day two of Coachella’s first weekend in 2023, the DJs played the Tom Bullock edit of Olivia Newton John’s cover of Jolene, a massive Dolly Parton country music hit first released in 1973 and covered by Olivia Newton John in 1976.
We can’t often identify which songs were played by which DJs, but we can make educated guesses. If it’s Belgian New Beat, it’s almost certainly a Dave or Steph selection. If it was dug from a dusty disco crate from the height of NYC disco (e.g., Watsonian Institute’s New York New York), we’re guessing it was a James selection. Jolene is a song that “crosses genre and generations, a once-in-a-world song without boundaries” (per the Tennesseean), charting all over the world in 1973 and 1974 — so any of the three DJs could have pulled it from their bag, but it just *feels* like a quintessentially American song, suggesting that it was a James Murphy selection.
Regardless, it was the most glorious version of the song I’ve ever heard, and this is coming from someone who (a) spent many formative years in the same Tennessee county that Dolly Parton grew up in, (b) had a season pass to Dollywood, the Dolly Parton theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, (c) received $500 from Dolly Parton upon graduation from high school; (d) has seen Dolly Parton perform live. Dolly Parton is a legend, and this song is one of her best, and it was especially wonderful for me to hear it loud at Coachella, on this spectacular soundsystem, with the whole room singing along to the rising chorus of “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene” and people hootin’ and hollerin’ like they had been transported to a good-ol’ fashioned country hoe-down. I’d heard this song many times growing up in the south, but had never heard a crowd of a thousand people sing along and dance to it.
You can listen to that moment here:
One thing that I think makes Coachella special is that most of the attendees are music lovers who listen to a wide range of music and who aren’t stuck in a single genre. This moment was proof of that.
On the one hand, it’s a pop song. On the other, it’s a seditious selection to play country music at Coachella, a festival that’s been more dominated by electronic dance music over the years. The Balearic sound is rebellious and doesn’t care much for genre boundaries. So long as it works. And it did work.
The DJs played the song at about 106 bpm — pitched down from its 113 bpm source material — adding another level of soulfulness to the rendition. They mixed out of Jolene into Waffles — Hankuri, a Soulwax/2manydjs edit of Hankuri by Madman Jaga (a 1970s afrobeat track).
Here’s Dolly herself, discussing the story behind the song in her audiobook Dolly Parton, Songteller:
“Jolene” is my most recorded song. Worldwide, through the years, I think some, they said it’s been recorded 400-some times, whether it’s a garage band, other languages, other whatevers, but everybody loves that song, even little bitty kids. Because one of the reasons, I guess every garage band can sing it, every woman relates to it, but it’s just that chorus, just over and over, like a repetition, like “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.” I mean, even kids send me little, they’re kids singing, they say, “Don’t take my man.” You know, they relate to “Don’t take my man,” they know the man, the, you know, whatever. But I don’t know what the reason is.
It’s just up-tempo, and people just love that song. And you would think that “I Will Always Love You” would be my most recorded song, or anything else, but “Jolene,” people go right to that song, and I’m happy, because I love it, too. I never get tired of singing that one, or “I Will Always Love You,” for that matter. But it’s just one of those songs that you just like to sing.
There was a little girl at one of my shows when I was with Porter, and she came up to the stage, and we used to sit and sign autographs after the shows, and she said, “Would you sign it to Jolene?” And I said, “Jolene, that’s a beautiful name. I bet you’re named after your daddy. Is his name Joe?” She said, “No, it’s just Jolene.” I said, “Well, I love that name, and I’m going to.” I said, “If you ever hear a song, you’ll know it’s about you.” So I just kept in my own mind to remember the name. I would just sing, “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,” just so I’d get back to the bus and write it down. So all the way back to the bus, I was going, “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,” which is why I thought, “Well, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.” I thought, “Well, I’ll just start it like that,” because that’s kind of how I was to remember the name. I just started it. I thought, “Well, I’ll just say that, and then I’ll just add to that.”
Then, of course, I came up with a story, and that loosely based story about Carl and the girl at the bank was true. There was a pretty girl down there, and I was jealous. She was pretty, and he was flirting, but I just kind of made that whole thing into a story that I knew would relate to women, too. too.