The power of Kesha + Dolly
Three years ago, Kesha began her legal battle against producer Dr. Luke, alleging that he drugged and raped her, and caused severe psychological damage throughout their years working together. Five years after her last album, Kesha finally released Rainbow, a cathartically messy return after Sony refused to free the singer from her contract (but agreed to let her not work with Dr. Luke). On the album, you can hear a sense of relief, but also an acceptance of her situation. Reluctant forgiveness in the name of freedom.
One song on Rainbow stands out from the rest; a duet of the Dolly Parton number one hit “Old Flames (Can’t Hold a Candle to You).” Kesha has been leaning towards country music ever since she went on a post-Dr. Luke music bender and started wearing Nudie suits and covering Bob Dylan and reconfiguring her aesthetic from glittery bottle of Jack Daniels to Gram Parson on Peyote. This song however, is much more than that. As Kesha said in an interview with NPR, “I just love the song — it’s in our family,” because this song was written by Kesha’s mother, Pebe Sebert.
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There’s been a kind of meme about country music going around this year, that’s not so much a meme as it is people stealing the same joke from each other.
This idea that women in country music sing about more complex topics than their male counterparts is not new, but the public realization seems to be. The first time I heard about the phenomenon was from Washington Post writer Chris Richards. He came to talk to a class I was taking my senior year of high school — an easy class so suitable for senioritis I don’t even remember the name of it. But I do remember Richards discussing an interview he did with then-up-and-coming country singer Kacey Musgraves. He mentioned, completely in passing, that men in country music, especially today, tend to sing about beer, trucks, and dirt roads, while women in country music sing more about personal drama, like abusive relationships and divorce.
Listening to current top country hits, it would be hard to make an argument against the idea that male country artists have more hollow lyrics. They sing about trucks and naked women and naked women in trucks. Maybe there’s a mention of freedom, but the bald eagle kind, not the kind relating to real oppression. Just for example, a current Top 40 hit called “Do I Make You Wanna” by someone named Billy Currington features the lyric “Girl when I come around tell me/Do I make you wanna?” (weirdly, from the comment section it seems everyone is missing the innuendo). There are others like Florida Georgia Line, Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan. A modern brand of dead-eyed Bro Country.
Then there are the women, who sometimes sing about trucks too, but are more known for laying out their hearts (so much so that they don’t even get played on the radio). Traditionally, Kitty Wells, the first solo female country star, whose hit “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honkey Tonk Angels” scorned unfaithful men who blame their wives, and Loretta Lynn, who sang about birth control in 1975, and Bobbie Gentry supposedly singing about throwing an aborted baby over the bridge in “Ode to Billie Joe.” There are more modern examples too: The Dixie Chicks singing about murdering an abusive husband, Carrie Underwood, who made a name for herself by singing about destroying her cheating man’s car with a baseball bat, and Margo Price with a song about the death of her newborn baby.

And of course there’s Dolly Parton, whose very first hit “Dumb Blonde” sweetly railed against the stereotype. Throughout her career, Dolly has always sung about women down on their luck; heartbroken women, poor women, women who are overworked and under appreciated. Not just Jolene but the woman whose heart she broke too.
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It became more and more infuriating to watch as Sony refused to let Kesha out of her recording contract, forcing her to work if not directly with her abuser, then with the record company under which his label sits. (Surely, record contracts have been broken at some point in history). It all began to feel like Kesha was being held hostage by evil pirates and we just had to sit there and watch as they stroked her face with swords.
The media and the public reacted as if it was the first time anything like this has happened and there was no precedent. A powerful man in the music industry abusing a younger woman? I can’t imagine!
Except yes I can, because it’s happened over and over again. This is only one of many incidents in which record companies sat idly by as abuse took place, letting the abuser (alleged or proven) advance his career. No one stopped R. Kelly after he married 15-year-old Aaliyah, 12 years his junior. Nor did his career face consequences after going to trial for sexual conduct with a minor. Even now that he’s been accused of running an abusive cult of young women, you don’t have to look far to find someone who will say “‘Ignition’ is still a good song, though.”
I also think of Ronnie Spector, lead singer of The Ronettes and ex-wife of convicted murder (and famed record producer) Phil Spector. Ronnie recalled in her memoir that Phil held her hostage in his Xanadu-like mansion, hiding her shoes so she couldn’t leave the house, screaming at her til she went mute, and withholding her royalties. Even Phil Spector’s career didn’t fully come crashing down until he was caught with literal blood on his hands.
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Kesha has been trapped for years under her recording contract, so it only makes sense that she finds a hero in Dolly Parton and solace in the women of country music. Parton has built her entire career and empire by being a savvy businesswoman. She famously refused to let Elvis record “I Will Always Love You” because he wanted half the publishing rights to the song she wrote. Obviously, this worked out in her favor since Whitney Houston went on to make it one of the biggest hits of all time. This same Dolly Parton who starred in a movie about women in the workplace getting revenge on their creepy, sexist boss.
And this genre, in which women are in a constant battle for getting the respect (and money) they deserve in their professional (and personal) lives. This genre where women can get banned from the radio for talking about birth control or criticizing the president or saying the words “girl crush.”
If you listen closely to “Old Flames,” you can hear all of this.
