Does anyone bring joy to the general public like national treasure Dolly Parton? At the age of 75, Parton has a long history of using her massive music platform for good, and recently, donated $1 million toward developing the Moderna vaccine against the novel coronavirus. Unlike reports of some wealthy folks who are trying to use their means to get vaccinated as soon as possible (while countless essential workers are still waiting), Parton told the Associated Press that she hasn’t yet gotten her shot.
"I didn't want to jump line,” she told CNN. “I didn't donate the money so I could be protected. I did it for everybody." Parton stressed that she does plan to get it, and in fact, probably plans to get it on camera. “I’ll tell them the truth, if I have symptoms and all that,” she told the Associated Press in reference to potential viewers. “Hopefully it’ll encourage people. I’m not going to jump the line just because I could.”
Parton is also in the news today because of a remixed version of a very, very popular song that has gone viral this Tuesday—a spinoff of “9 to 5” that speaks to today’s gig culture.
The refigured song “5 to 9” appears in a Super Bowl commercial for Squarespace, a popular e-commerce platform. A playful spin on the original, some of the lyrics to the new song include the following:
Working five to nine
You've got passion and a vision
Cuz it's hustlin' time
A whole new way to make a livin'
Gonna change your life
Do something that gives it meaning
With a website that is worthy of your dreaming
Here’s the remixed version in full.
As Daily Kos covered at the time, there have been recent efforts to remove a statue honoring a racist KKK leader from the Tennessee state Capitol—and some have suggested they should replace it with a bust of Dolly Parton instead. But as Parton told CNN, she actually doesn’t love the idea of a statue honoring herself. Why not? As Parton told the outlet, “I think that's something that can be done after I'm dead and gone.”