Did Beyoncé need to cover Jolene on Cowboy Carter?

From the moment Cowboy Carter was announced, Beyoncé has told us: "This ain't a Country album. This is a 'Beyoncé' album."

And while the highly-anticipated follow-up to 2022's Renaissance includes covers of some of the most beloved songs in the genre, some fans are wondering whether they needed  Beyoncé's spin on some of these tracks.

Music journalists Andrea Williams and David Dennis Jr., and comedian Ashley Ray join host Elamin to discuss the release — and what it might say about the future of Black country music.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

LISTEN | Today's episode on YouTube:

Elamin: The fact that she doesn't speak much — she stopped doing media interviews a while ago, Andrea — means that she has to let the work do the talking, but also has to let the choices do the talking. When you see these choices — for example, the second song on the album is her covering Blackbird by The Beatles, but she brings in a new generation of young Black women in country music right now and she lets them sort of carry the rest of the tune — what do you make of those choices?

Andrea: A lot of the choices, if it is this full reclamation project — we can't say that it is — well then I'm really going to start to question, right? Because I don't know that we need another Jolene cover, I'm gonna be honest with you. I think Dolly got enough cheques, and there are other ways to go about it, right? Like, let's cover Fairytale, the Pointer Sisters country song that won a Grammy, that was written by the Pointer Sisters, that was written by Black women.

LISTEN | JOLENE from Cowboy Carter:

Elamin: This song [JOLENE] doesn't do a lot for me. It's actually kind of like the weird aberration on this record. I have skipped it several times as I've been playing it because I listen to this and go, I don't know if I needed Beyoncé to say, "Don't come for my man," — then why are you saying her name so much if you're not feeling so threatened by her? This sort of takes away the sting and the power of Jolene in many ways, but many people feel differently. Ashley, are you on board with the Beyoncé-Jolene take?

Ashley: I am shocked by how it seems like people are misunderstanding this song so much. It feels like everyone seems to believe she's talking about herself and her life and blah blah blah, when we know she said she was inspired by so many movies, so many old stories. And I'm sorry, but one of the oldest Black southern stories is the scorned Black wife who shoots her husband's lover, or husband. I mean, my own great aunt shot her husband when he cheated on her. She brought him and his mistress over, offered them lemonade, came back with a gun, shot him. He didn't die. It was fine. But you know, I think that is a realistic response within the Black female community, and this is a version of Jolene that comes from that perspective and honours sort of those older stories.

I don't think it's just Beyoncé wanting a man, but it is about the sort of older tradition of how Black womanhood was seen. So I think it's different, and she changes the lyrics to make it more interesting in that way, which I find interesting. But it's odd to me that people really want to take this as biographical when, you know, Dolly Parton was begging Beyoncé to cover Jolene for years, and I think Beyoncé just went, "Fine. I'm going to do it my way. But I can't sit here and say some white girl with red hair is prettier than me. It's just not realistic." She was like, what do you mean? I don't think Beyoncé could relate to the original lyrics of Jolene.

Elamin: David Dennis Jr., what's your take on JOLENE?

David: It was fine. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is the thing — that when the album comes out and she announces it, everybody says, "Oh, she's got to do a Jolene cover." This is like a fan service thing, and I agree with what Ashley's saying here. This is why Beyoncé don't talk to us, right? Because she puts out JOLENE and everybody's like, "Oh, she's still singing about Jay-Z." No, she's not. Like it's not only Beyoncé, it's all the history that was laid out just now, but also the fact the history of country music, people always tell these stories. They tell these fictional stories … and Beyoncé is tapping into that — and people immediately started saying, "Oh, Jay-Z must be cheating again, or she's still upset about Jay-Z." This is why she keeps it private, because people are misreading all of that. The song itself I could do without; it's not really for me. It's not really keeping the momentum of the album, but I understand why it's there.

Elamin: I love everything that you guys just said. My problem with it is that the next song after the Jolene cover on this record is the most compelling version of that, which is DAUGHTER. DAUGHTER is a straight-up murder ballad. Like, Beyoncé goes "Jolene, I'm going to threaten you. Please don't come for my man." And the very next song is a murder ballad. A murder ballad is one of the great southern musical traditions. And she weaves into it an opera.

LISTEN | DAUGHTER from Cowboy Carter:

That's Beyoncé, to me. That's ambition, and that's a larger conceptual take, whereas the cover of Jolene is the, let's say, palatable, let's say, country radio-friendly version of the same idea. And I don't know if country radio is going to play that record or not, but certainly they have something to play with there, should they choose to investigate it.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.