Everybody wants to be a cowboy
A letter from the editor, a tribute to Dolly Parton
I grew up hopping from one suburb to the next tracking the country from Ohio, to Missouri, eventually to Corona, CA. It was there in that SoCal-small town that I watched Disney Channel reruns like retirees watch the sunset and fell in love with Hannah Montana. We kids were lucky then. We had a world of our own on TV and I think a group of adults must have been paid pretty well to take it seriously. One of the greatest Disney Channel series arcs ever written was the love story between Hannah Montana’s Miley Stewart and Jake Ryan. I don’t think I’ve ever felt the way I felt about their penultimate getting-together episodes about any other TV narrative again. OVERWHELMED on my scooter, racing to my best friend’s house to watch the big reveal on a Friday night. Something I didn’t know as a 10-year-old was that these episodes were giving me a lifelong gift that had nothing to do with Miley or Jake. These episodes gave me Aunt Dolly.
Surprise, I am so sad about Dolly Parton’s passing (the same as every other person who was ever aware of her magic). In fact, my sadness is what prompted me to write another letter to you all. I felt compelled to put it in writing. I think this is a symptom of public figure grief. I am experiencing the loss in the role of a fan, and in 2026 we fans more often congregate online than out in the world. So here I am. Like a crow on a power line, screeching at the pavement. It’s rare that I’m moved to this degree about a celebrity death. It got me thinking about my reaction to Dolly, and what it was about her that left such an impact. Of course, she was a national treasure in her embodiment of kindness—from her disposition to her philanthropic work—and also as an incomparably talented artist. Dolly was what often feels like a last vestige of classic country, making music of which you could hear the threads of her working class, Appalachian roots. Music that comes from a life lived through struggle and interdependence. I’ve often to returned her and the likes of her work, soothed by their sincerity.
Dolly’s death triggered a feeling I’ve been experiencing all year; the idea that I might be especially clinging to country music and cowboy culture in some effort to feel at home in a country that so violently rejects me. While bombs fall on Iran (and still Palestine, and still Lebanon, and still more), conservative propaganda only tightens its grip on Americans. With that comes a glimmering wave of southern Americana in pop culture. Cowboy hats, cowboy boots, Ella Langley at the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for 19-consecutive weeks. Though, speaking of her hit single “Choosin’ Texas”, it was likewise living in my headphones for a long time, too. Because country music has been a part of my life for a long time. One of my earliest memories is playing a Shania Twain CD in a Holiday Inn hotel room, dancing on the double queen beds with my mom. It was evidently her who introduced me to all the good stuff. She’d sing “Islands In The Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers in the car driving me to middle school what felt like every morning. To this day I still hear the song in my head sung in her Persian accent. In fact, classic American country music actually reminds me of many Iranian classics. Crooning voices and emotional clarity drive each genre, both their melodies and lyrics begging to be sung aloud by their listeners. I think my very typical child-of-immigrants rejection of my own people’s music just found an assimilated home in country music.
I often think about the dynamic of loving something that wasn’t really made for you. It can be something inane, like loving bread when you have a gluten intolerance (also a journey I’m on right now and can’t shut the hell up about). Or it can be this, that I love country music and I begrudgingly love this country, while neither were made for me. It can be that I grew up with neighbors whose kids become my best friends, who introduced me to The Who and Jeff Foxworthy, and whose mother made me sit in the other room while they all ate dinner together. That I could be the most excited member of my college friend group to be at a saloon bar in Winthrop, WA and be pulled aside by a bartender, carded twice, while everyone else was alreadying playing pool. That I could be at a smoothie shop in Lone Pine, CA with my girlfriend and hear a new song whose catchy hook stayed stuck in my head all week, until I got the chance to go back into my Shazam history and look it up, getting excited for the album drop of this great country singer who incorporates that old classic country sound I love, and then fall in love with that record, only to find a Morgan Wallen feature on it and a sit-down interview with alt-conservative podcast host Theo Von accompanying its release. (C’mon, Ella Langley, I was rooting for you!) I know it all reads like a cringey, internalized racism shitstorm. But shoot, you can say I’m sharp as a marble and send me straight across the pond to the rodeo! The music will always beckon me. I may be walking through sticky near-transparent spiderwebs to get to it, and they may cling to my skin, and I may have to swipe my arms until the feeling goes away, but I’m crossing that old rickety bridge every time.
Dolly Parton was like a soft landing spot on the other side. Probably the first person from this world I could count on. A representative of safety in American culture. She made me believe in togetherness, in solidarity. Dolly felt like a promise that maybe a melting pot democracy could be real, that the music that’s resonated with me my whole life was mine to keep. I’ve been thinking about what Miley said last year when asked about the best advice she’d ever received. It was from her Aunt Dolly. You do you, I’ll do me, and together we’ll be us. I am really trying my best to do me out here, but what about when them doing them is doing fascism? Can we really be us then? I imagine Dolly’s answer to be something quick and witty, like, “I said you and me darlin’, they’re not invited!” But funnier and better, because she was so funny and good. And it would make me feel better. Because Dolly knew how joy fuels people; especially now, in the midst of some of the hardest years this country has seen. Her commitment to optimism makes me want to strengthen my own, if not for this country’s sake then for mine in surviving it.
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