Dolly Parton - What's Up? (feat. Linda Perry)

September 22, 2023 11:02 AM

From her upcoming album Rockstar, Dolly Parton sings 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up?"
posted by Etrigan (38 comments total)

Awwwr. That was sweet. It's different coming from old vocal cords than from young ones, I think. Also, any time Dolly is singing a song that lets her get up into her shout-sing register, it's going to pack a punch.

This Rockstar project is just tickling me. I hope she's having a good time with it. It seems like she is.
posted by hippybear at 11:11 AM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

Fantastic. Now I’m counting the minutes until we get a mash-up video with Fabulous Secret Powers.
posted by mbrubeck at 11:11 AM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]

Awesome! Put that and Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" on the B-side and you're all set.
posted by riverlife at 11:15 AM on September 22, 2023

HEART EYES. Thanks, Etrigan!
posted by mochapickle at 11:16 AM on September 22, 2023

O, thanks for this!
posted by Going To Maine at 11:33 AM on September 22, 2023

Her voice is still great and she's a fine singer... but instead of "I pray every day for a revolution", she sings "for a resolution," which I think weakens the song.

That is: if the singer is praying for a revolution, the feeling is "I can't go on like this," whereas if it's "resolution" the angst is much lower-key: "I sure do wish these feelings would resolve themselves."
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:33 AM on September 22, 2023 [25 favorites]

Love Dolly Parton, and I do not think she should have done this cover. Dolly Parton is both too positive and not political enough of a person to do this song. It's fundamentally different. Her changing revolution to resolution is absolutely needed, because there's nothing revolutionary about her take on it.

That said, I get enough of a warm nostalgic feeling from hearing her voice that I can't hate it completely. I don't even hate Luke Combs for ruining Fast Car. I mean, Chapman and 4 non blondes probably deserve some more attention and sales.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:06 PM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]

Still has the pipes...
posted by jim in austin at 12:07 PM on September 22, 2023

...4 non blondes probably deserve some more attention and sales.

Linda Perry is raking in the dough from her production and songwriting career
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 12:09 PM on September 22, 2023 [7 favorites]

Indeed, she is behind the scenes of plenty of great music since “What’s Up?” came out.

Interesting if unconfirmed factoid: “What’s Up?” is one of the relatively few songs where the title dies not appear on the lyrics. I am told this change is to avoid confusion with the Marvin Gaye song, “What’s Going On?”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:16 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

If you liked this, check out the cover of Let It Be with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Mick Fleetwood and Peter Frampton. I was not prepared for tears at how Dolly and Paul's voices blend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXW-p4nKdDA
posted by skullhead at 12:19 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

Linda Perry is raking in the dough from her production and songwriting career

And from a boost from the Wachowskis. (Clip is from their series Sense8, and that song is a sort of touchstone for the series for reasons WAY too complicated to explain.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:33 PM on September 22, 2023 [6 favorites]

That's, um, quite the list of collaborators. Should be an interesting re-imagining of absolute classic hits, though I like when she takes a mediocre song and elevates it into the ionosphere, like Shine.
posted by credulous at 12:33 PM on September 22, 2023 [7 favorites]

(One of the other non-blondes is a current member of Parliament-Funkadelic, while the other two don't have Wikipedia pages.)
posted by box at 12:42 PM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]

...she sings "for a resolution," which I think weakens the song

Absolutely. I was having trouble with that, too. And then I used this One Weird Trick:

I'm an atheist who loves gospel, bluegrass, old-time... lots of music with lyrics that scrub at the core of my being with a wire brush.

Turns out the part of my mind that's driven crazy by lyrics has a convenient off-switch that becomes accessible when music's good enough.

*flip*
posted by gurple at 1:00 PM on September 22, 2023 [12 favorites]

Truly one of the great songs of the 90s
posted by potrzebie at 1:08 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

gurple, that is a great description! (and a fun username too)
Thanks for posting, Etrigan.
posted by winesong at 1:08 PM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't even hate Luke Combs for ruining Fast Car.

Luke Combs stuck to the original lyrics and sang them without any sense of irony or detachment;
Dolly changed an important lyric into both-sides pablum. I gotta say I prefer Combs' approach.
posted by ZaphodB at 1:19 PM on September 22, 2023 [5 favorites]

This was the first MP3 I ever "bought". Pepsi had a promotion where under some bottle caps you'd get a code for a free song on the iTunes store. A classic. And Dolly kills it.
posted by downtohisturtles at 1:25 PM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Good lord, that's one serious track list. Wish it had a Gibby Haynes duet though.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:47 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

We-ell, you know-oh-oh ... we're all doing what we can.
posted by credulous at 1:49 PM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

I love Dolly, of course, but the first thing that stood out to me was the Rhodes in the intro. The production is really nice across the board, especially the instrumentation. Some of the other tracks on this record have suffered from Dolly trying too hard to sound like Dolly, but this one she cuts loose and it's a breath of fresh air.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:57 PM on September 22, 2023

Turns out the part of my mind that's driven crazy by lyrics has a convenient off-switch that becomes accessible when music's good enough.

*flip*

If you do this with Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," the song turns into a banger.
posted by zardoz at 2:02 PM on September 22, 2023

If you do this with Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," the song turns into a banger.

That's because it turns into Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:44 PM on September 22, 2023 [7 favorites]

That's, um, quite the list of collaborators.

That's exactly what each individual one of those collaborators say when they look at the list of their collaborators: "Dolly Parton"
posted by Flunkie at 2:56 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

I refuse to listen to this, even though I love Dolly dearly. I just. Can't. Bear. to hear that song again, in any form. I despise it.
posted by Dr. Wu at 3:18 PM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

That Collective Soul cover is fucking amazing. Thank you, credulous!
posted by unknowncommand at 3:46 PM on September 22, 2023 [6 favorites]

I clicked on this with trepidation because I LOVE “what’s up” so much, and I just wasn’t sure… but Dolly Parton’s vocals absolutely do it justice. It’s a very different song with her at the mic, but just as valid. (Agree that “resolution” threw me off and wasn’t a good change.)

The instrumentation was less my jam. It just felt too… polished, clean? The vibe was off. Still, glad to have heard it, shared it with friends.
posted by obfuscation at 4:26 PM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Prince Adam's rendition remains definitive
posted by StarkRoads at 4:51 PM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]

Her voice is still great and she's a fine singer... but instead of "I pray every day for a revolution", she sings "for a resolution," which I think weakens the song.

Someone mentioned Hurt, Johnny Cash changed the line 'I wear this crown of shit' to 'I wear this crown of thorns'. Completely changes the meaning, right? But it's also why it's his version of the song.

From earlier this year:

Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus’ ‘Rainbowland’ was banned from a first-grade spring concert

This sucks, there's nothing wrong with the song, the parents just think rainbows are gay now. Which is evil. Rainbows are evil.

Livin' in a rainbowland
Where you and I go hand in hand
Oh, I'd be lying (I'd be lying), if I said this was fine
All the hurt and the hate going on here
We are rainbows, me and you
Every color, every hue
Let's shine through
Together we can start living in a rainbowland

Like, whatever. Those parents need to go sit in the naughty corner or something. But here's the fun part, after some negotiation it was decided that the kids were allowed to sing the Muppet's Rainbow Connection. I'm sure they looked very hard at the lyrics, trying to find the gay part. They completely missed that it's a duet, sung by a frog and a pig, who are lovers.
posted by adept256 at 5:23 PM on September 22, 2023 [6 favorites]

If you do this with Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," the song turns into a banger.

This has been taken care of! The new lyrics slap and are educational.

Word Crimes - Weird Al
posted by adept256 at 5:31 PM on September 22, 2023 [11 favorites]

I have a guitar student who is about 12 years old. He's much more interested in singing than playing guitar and mostly just wants to learn simple chords to sing along with. He cannot carry a tune, but he goes for it and is just adorable.

He's been learning this song and it's hard for anyone to sing, but he just belts it out. His mom came to his lesson last week and she was beaming at how much he enjoys singing this song from when she was a teenager.

Between the little guy and Dolly, I like this song about 10x more than I did six months ago.

(The "25 years and my life is still..." part makes me smile coming from the little kid and Dolly's version—"after all these years"—kinda got me here at the end.)
posted by straight at 12:04 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

To me it matters that Luke Combs didn't regender Fast Car: it's signaling this is not his story, he doesn't own this. Respect for his recognizing that. A great cover does add some new ownership of the song, and his cover is not great but decent; decency is not in oversupply.

Dolly's rewording is more trespassing than ownership, ain't no Johnny Cash, but oh well, *flip*
posted by away for regrooving at 12:21 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

I only know of this song as "That He Man video song", so now I want someone to put this over He Man clips too.
posted by BinaryApe at 3:03 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

One of the other non-blondes is a current member of Parliament-Funkadelic

I’m sorry, what?
posted by rhymedirective at 6:27 AM on September 23, 2023

One blonde-blonde-blonde-blonde
posted by chavenet at 8:29 AM on September 23, 2023

psychoalphadiscobetanonblondebioaquadooloop
posted by Flunkie at 2:43 PM on September 23, 2023

"What's Up" covered by one non-non-blonde.
posted by straight at 1:50 PM on October 2, 2023