Time for another song about the other woman…
[Video][Website]
[5.25]
Jessica Doyle: I hear “I’m not the scarlet devil” and my brain flicks over immediately to “ain’t I the Jezebel, ain’t I the queen/hit hell and every stop in between.” Because back in 2000 I was at the Variety Playhouse, and Jennifer Nettles was having a blast onstage, by turns strutting and defensive and funny and vulnerable. Later she sang “Shade the Hand of Fear,” from her first band, and I wept, and a woman standing next to me said, “Did you go to Agnes Scott?” “No,” I said, bewildered, “I work in Midtown.” Yes, that was dumb. Yes, Jennifer Nettles once had a large lesbian following thanks to her alma mater (and her voice, and her grin onstage). Yes, I could’ve flirted once with a sweet butch who saw me crying, and didn’t; instead I went home and probably picked a fight with my parents, because in 2000 I was doing a poor job of pretty much everything except passive-aggressiveness. I shouldn’t want Jennifer Nettles to be that girl of over a decade ago; it’s not fair to her; but I don’t have it in me to support her being this mopey, trying-to-have-it-both-ways woman either.
[4]
Alfred Soto: She answers the challenge of “Jolene.” She is Jolene, responding with electric piano to Parton’s hard acoustic strums. It’s hard for me to tell whether the glibness is Nettles in character or a failure of projection; the doubletracked vocal doesn’t help though.
[6]
Anthony Easton: Jolene might be a too-on-the-nose reference, just on the wrong end of fashionable, especially since Nettles’ voice does not have the air or finesse of Dolly’s. This is not intended as a dig; Nettles’ tightness and constriction is perfect for the material, and the material has an obsessive, pock-marked ugliness that seems to provide a shadow to all the recent pleasure-seeking.
[9]
Edward Okulicz: Nettles sings the words with just the right mix of ruefulness and intelligence, but the emotion’s not helped by the clunky claps of the rhythm — sure you can be numb, but the overall effect shouldn’t be numbing.
[6]
Josh Langhoff: This is played and sung well, but nobody wants Jolene to be a nice normal remorseful person! “Jolene” worked because Dolly elevated run-of-the-mill domestic drama to the realm of terror and legend. In their effort to tell a Jolene origin story, Nettles and Butch Walker rob her of her power. Not that she should be the scarlet devil, but she shouldn’t be this dull. Jolene’s new voice drains the irony from a potentially great line — “I know boys can be promiscuous, yeah, that’s just what they do” — and therefore hands all the agency to the guy and/or millions of years of evolution. Where’s the fun in that?
[4]
Ramzi Awn: There’s something about the bass in Jennifer Nettles’ voice. But there’s also something about “That Girl” that feels frivolous and cheap, like the subject of its lyrics. Perhaps this was intended? Either way, the dress in the video is the best part of the song.
[5]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Nettles wants to make the “other woman” seem human, vulnerable and coming from a place of good morals – the chorus describes how she doesn’t want to be that girl to another woman. It’s no accident that she makes reference to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” and this song could be a rebuttal to that classic’s heartbreak and fury. Where “Jolene” wavered, tipsy off its own emotion, “That Girl” appears relaxed. Nettles’ scorned woman warns but doesn’t scold, and in some regards the flamenco-tinged backing makes sense: seductive music but performed with emotional detachment. “That Girl” is layered in interesting ways, but the same can’t be said for its delivery. A shame, then, that it never becomes anything more than milquetoast reportage from the other woman’s other side.
[4]
Brad Shoup: The close-miked crackle of the arrangement should’ve ignited in the refrain. I’m not sure what happened. Give me a muted organ solo, something. And the moral is most definitely not “be careful what you reap”! The part you control is the sowing. Unless you’re warning us off scythe elbow, you got it backwards.
[4]