The last straw was Kanye west in cowboy gear pouring milk over himself, which was splashed across social media. There had been rumours of a country and western revival throughout the first part of the year after Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter album, but this was next-level cowboy-tural appropriation. And it certainly seemed like it was ... “happening”. According to Official Charts, country music saw a 67% increase in the UK before the second half of 2024, and country album sales had been amplified by 29% to a total of 1.1-million (up from 846,000 in 2023).
Rap queen Lana Del Rey, who’s apparently set to release her 10th album Lasso soon, boldly announced the music business was heading westwards and she planned to follow suit. “We’re going country,” she proclaimed in no uncertain terms. “It’s happening.”
In the interim, rappers Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s country-ish effort I Had Some Help debuted on the UK singles charts at No 2, alongside Beyoncé’s country-laced contribution.
And with her “western” experiment, Beyoncé is, it seems, the reason for this trend. Compelled to investigate, I was hampered in my progress right from the outset.
I like me some country music on occasion, so it wasn’t easy to overcome my reluctance to hearing Beyoncé venturing into the cowboy cosmos — in particular, her reworking of the classic Dolly Parton ballad Jolene. I still fluctuate precariously between a profound sense of achievement for having got over my hang-up and an uncomfortable level of apprehension.
Her version of the tune caused a stir with critics, who chorused a resounding, “Yeah! Good for her!” They opined, “She’s deftly wrenched the narrative from its original status as one of a homely country gal’s anguished plea to an open challenge by a more dominant, gatekeeping warrior bitch (or, more specifically, in Ms Big B’s words, a “creole banjee bitch”) warning off a hovering femme fatale.”
“You go, girl!” fans proclaimed. “No more victims ovah heah, Jolene. Bring it on, you second-rate Delilah.”
The original version paints a picture of a hapless woman drowning in fear a gorgeous rival stands poised to seduce and take away her man. It’s a melancholic lament from someone overwhelmed by an acute sense of defeat, and this, some will argue, is what makes it touching. “Shifting the fundamental focus or theme is messing with the essence of the song,” they’ll say.
And, technically at least, it’s basically mimics the childish antics for which Leon Schuster and “Weird Al” Yankovic became famous. Yanking a perfectly good composition from its historic nest and refurbishing the lyrics is pure blasphemy, according to purists. (“Imagine,” they’ll argue, “reworking Dylan’s scathing indictment of warmongers, Masters of War, into a driving anthem in celebration of those orchestrating armed conflict.”)
This also edges things into #MustFall territory. Garden-variety iconoclasts, such as the severely angry former victims of oppression, will remain rooted in the “off-with-their-heads” camp, bulldozing or burning anything that reminds them of a traumatic or inequitable past.
In contrast, unbending traditionalists flailing about in their fear of change will cower behind the “never mess with history” precept. “I’d like to stand before that effigy of Cecil John Rhodes with my child one day,” they’ll solemnly intone, “and say, ‘You asked me what greed is — well, there you have it.’”
A third contingent might opt for an awkward compromise: that such icons be hauled off to museums to be displayed in a “Hall of Evil”, or at least altered in some way: “Let’s paint Adolf Hitler pink and give him a Mexican moustache. That’ll show ’em.”
It’s this last category that was chosen by Beyoncé as an outlet for her carefully cultivated don’t-mess-with-me persona. (She’s already known for such jaw-jutting outbursts before her distortion of Parton’s song — in other creations such as Irreplaceable she also discards the role of would-be cuckold for one of a female Chuck Norris.)
It’s this defiant stance that’s prompted people to hail Beyoncé’s new effort as a testament to female empowerment. On the face of it, even those who remain sceptical about the intrinsic feminist worth of Queen B’s effort, have to admit its character is a step closer to female emancipation than the helpless victim in the original.
But how much exactly? Given the deep divisions in feminist thinking, it remains a somewhat prickly twilight zone in the battle for agency. If Beyoncé really had any form of female empowerment in mind, a notable chunk of feminist factions would ascertain that she probably didn’t dress quite right for the occasion.
In the YouTube promotional video, she’s slathered across the back seat of a desert-bound vehicle, prancing prettily about the bedroom in leopard-patterned undies, or spraying ammo from a faux phallus in the form of automatic weaponry. Alternatively, she’s spread-eagled on the back of a stallion or wriggling about in the hay, scantily clad in cowboy accessories, hot pants drawn up to her neck, every inch the clichéd, oozing sex machine.
Tunisian feminist writer Tharwa Boulifi reprimands what she calls “Western feminists” for reducing the movement to women’s right to flaunt their sexuality. Admonishing particularly US feminists, who’ve been splattering images of bikini-clad women in Pahlavi-era (pre-revolutionary) Iran on the internet, she said, “Progressive ideas regarding body image should be appreciated, but they shouldn’t be presented as the only way of defending the feminist cause.”
She goes further. Instead of dismantling patriarchy, Western feminism has become a self-construed sanctuary for white women used by men in Western governments to “propagate imperialism in non-white countries”. Referring to the current conflict in the Middle East, she adds in The New Arab, “Many women in the West now use their brand of feminism to justify religious discrimination, Islamophobia and xenophobia.”
Given all this, in a certain sense the original Dolly Parton version comes even closer to making a statement for women’s empowerment. If one of the chief tenets of the feminist cause is solidarity, it’s a valid anthem in its bid for understanding and leniency from one country gal to another.
A consolation for the man-haters of the world, however, is that they can still rejoice in the knowledge that at least one aspect of the famous tune has remained unchanged. Like the original, the new version is still dripping with sexist, even misandric, goop.
The men in both tales are heartless, spineless and by all accounts rather stupid victims of their innate, uncontrollable yearning to sow their wild oats. They can barely be taught menial tasks such as making their own beds but remain poised to commit adultery at the drop of a hat.
In the latter version, it’s spelt out that the would-be She-Hulk that is Beyoncé’s chosen persona “raised that man” like she raised her kids. (He, in turn, apparently just, well, sat there, most probably imagining Jolene with boobs the size of Bloemfontein.) She’s decided for the poor, ever-salacious fool that he’s happy and has been in love with her for 20 years. The Good Lawd Almighty forbid that he ever cultivates a mind or will of his own.
Which all begs the question why this characterless idiot is being fought over so furiously in the first place. Nowhere in any version of the song does the reason his wife needs to bodyguard the twit so closely seem to surface.
Controversial rapper Azealia Banks brought it closer to home on Instagram, in what could be seen as nouveau-cowgirl “bee-yatch-speak”, when she asked Beyoncé to find new content because “nobody, and I mean nobody, thinks he [Beyoncé’s real-life spouse Jay-Z] is even remotely attractive”.
Let’s hope the best parts of country music will survive it all.
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