The answer begins with a little girl’s name and a bank teller who was paying rather too much attention to Dolly’s husband.
Dolly Found a Whole Heartache in a Trip to the Bank
For all its emotional force, “Jolene” grew out of two encounters Dolly remembered with her familiar warmth and humor. The name came from a child, while the romantic trouble came from somewhere considerably less adorable.
In a 2008 interview with NPR, Dolly recalled signing autographs after appearances on a country television show during the late 1960s. One evening, a red-haired girl with green eyes approached her, and Dolly asked her name.
The child, whom Dolly remembered as being about eight, answered Jolene. Dolly loved the sound enough to repeat it and promise that she would write a song around it.
The story itself drew on a bank teller who had developed a crush on Dolly’s husband, Carl Dean. Carl apparently enjoyed the attention, and his enthusiasm for visiting the bank became a joke between the couple.
