Dolly Parton just announced her new album Rockstar after teasing it for quite some time. The lead single “World On Fire” quite obviously confronts the political climate: “Don’t get me started on politics / Now how are we to live in a world like this / Greedy politicians, present and past / They wouldn’t know the truth if it bit ‘em in the ass,” she sings.
On The Today Show, Parton discussed the song. Interviewer Jacob Soboroff asked which politician it’s about, and she answered, “All of em! Any of em!” Parton said. “I don’t think any of ’em are trying hard enough. I’m sure they’re all trying, but I just really think that, often, they worry more about their party than they do about the people. If we just do what we felt was the right thing, rather than who’s gonna lose, who’s gonna win this, who’s gonna look better if they do this, rather than working from the heart.”
She also revealed off-camera to Soboroff that she declined an invitation to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden, after she rejected it twice from Donald Trump. She said she didn’t want to be associated with either.
Parton’s also doing something she rejected and then accepted: going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “I had always thought I might do one, but I hadn’t thought about doing it right now,” she said. “But I thought, Well, why not right now, with all the hoopla and all the craziness that went on around this?”
Rockstar is out 11/17 via Butterfly Records. Find more information here.
