By Laura C. Lippman
Dolly Driving I-90 through the dark Wyoming night summer 1972, two-thirds the way from Philly to Seattle, no one waiting at my destination, the only radio station in the whole godforsaken state was Country. I had been traveling to the beat of a different drum singing Linda Ronstadt to myself, belting changing horses in midstream from the all-girl Fanny album when I started fiddling with the radio dial. Tired of my own voice, dialing through the nighttime static, I came to that Country station again and stopped there in pure desperation. Out of the radio with the force of an explosion came a clear piercing soprano voice crooning about a girl named Jolene, begging her please don’t take my man. Riveting, a woman speaking truth to all us young women who recognized that amazing popular girl with all the charm and pizzazz in the world as she conquered all the guys with a toss of her head leaving the rest of us scrabblers only crumbs.
