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It didn’t work with you but it worked with me, but now I understand: Abbey I’m sorry I stole your man.

“He said you were crazy.” Many a-man who has resorted to this rhetoric to defend his shameful actions. Many a-man who has ensnared women by vilifying their partner, to justify infidelity and disrespect.

At midnight on 10 June, lyrically talented Sweaty Lamarr released her newest song, “Abbey I’m Sorry I Stole Your Man.”

With poignant lyrics written from the perspective of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” and a kicky, catchy rock/country beat, Lamarr’s new tune might be, musically speaking, a far-cry from what we’ve previously heard from the artist. But like her previous works, she succeeds in getting us in our feels — only this time, we’re tapping our feet to an infectious beat.

“My process is that I write the lyrics first, and then I bring in people to arrange and I have a sense of what the song is gonna be like in my head and we work really hard to get it to that point,” Lamarr says. “With this song, though, I did something different. Usually my choruses are very wordy, and they’re super dynamic. Every word is different, no two choruses are the same. In this one [Abbey I’m Sorry I Stole Your Man], I wanted to find something catchy. And that was the challenge.”

Indeed, Lamarr never felt any difficulty in writing lyrics that feel like poetry.

“It’s far too easy for me to talk anyone’s head off!” she deadpans. “The difficult part of me is the restraint. Coming up with something simple and repetitive, and not trying to add to it.”

And yet, the words flow in the song so effortlessly, one cannot feel as though the artist ever felt restricted or faced any sort of challenge. Even the timber of her voice matches the country feel of the song — an obvious nod to Parton.

Both poetry and catchiness are present in the song, especially in the chorus as Lamarr switches it up every time she sings the words: “Abbey I’m Sorry I Stole Your Man.”

Abbey I’m Sorry I Stole Your Man
Woah-woah
Courted by crooked hand

Abbey I’m Sorry I Stole Your Man
Woah-woah
Dazzled by a calloused hand

Abbey I’m Sorry I Stole Your Man
Woah-woah
Wisened by a powdered hand

The musician wanted to use these three verses specifically to paint a very specific portrait of the man in question, responsible for the rift between two women.

“I needed Jolene to have a balance of telling her story,” she explains. “Which I think she gets to. And then also, talking about the unfair, cruel and manipulative behaviours of the man.”

While Lamarr’s song tackles a very underrepresented and refreshing take on Dolly Parton’s infamous “Jolene,” she is not the first to have been inspired by it.

Other songs to take Jolene’s standpoint would be Cam’s “Diane,” or even Lisa Jeanette’s “Don’t Blame Me.”

“This song came to me because I have seen situations in which women or even men were “chosen” by someone who was in a relationship,” Lamarr explains, “and unfortunately, that person who leaves one relationship for another in these cases, the assumption is that they will change and that new person is their soulmate, and their connection is so special and there was no denying it. But that person who leaves an existing relationship still has to address what it was that made them stray. And I found that, mostly men in these cases, don’t change. And they leave their wife for the hot young secretary and then leave the secretary for the hot young intern.”

The song is a cry against internalized misogyny, and how men find a way to play it to their advantage.

The first line goes He said you were crazy ; playing into the victim narrative that men oftentimes take to defend their wrong-doings. And much to every woman’s dismay, at first glance they fall for it, but as one comes across the same narrative several times, one stops to think and ask themselves: “Was she actually crazy or did you drive her insane?”

“These themes came to me as I was writing the song,” Lamarr says, “and as I was writing I realized I needed a title. And as I was sitting and thinking about it, I realized that it was very similar to Jolene. And not everybody would make that jump because they see Jolene as this harlot! When I first heard Jolene, I just thought ‘Yeah but what’s the husband doing? Why is he so easily swayed?’”

The name “Abbey” was chosen, (rather than “Dolly” as a direct answer to Dolly Parton) so as to not step into a character.

“I wanted to explain where [Jolene’s] mistake came from,” Lamarr explains. “How she was raised, like many of us, on Disney movies where we’re told that love conquers all, and the internalized misogyny that pits women against each other for the affections of men, and lets us look past those huge red flags.”

Produced by Van Isaacson and Sam Roller from Lovegrove Studios, the demo came together almost completely in less than a week — a serendipitous, and truly refreshing turn of events for the singer, who has previously had quite a few difficult experiences with studios.

The duo was very receptive to Lamarr’s ideas, as she sent them a playlist to derive inspiration, musically speaking. It included songs from the artist’s favourite bands and artists like Murder by Death, Good Old War, Karen Elson and Lauren O’Connell.

“My song is a song that I would wanna hear on an American Horror Story coven fan-cam, I want it to have that spooky feel,” the singer says.

Indeed, the spooky atmosphere is present alongside the country flare, with the whistling tunes and the chain sounds in the bridge — a chain, Lamarr insists, she personally bought from Home Depot and shook it as she was recording.

“There’s that guilt there that is dragging across the floor,” Lamarr says. “It sort of evokes Marley’s chains from A Christmas Carol. That was very deliberate as a reference.”

The artist truly found a way to balance the lyrics with the music, tying it all back respectfully to the world that Dolly Parton created.

“Everything I’ve done in this song is a love letter to Dolly,” Lamarr says, “and I hope that it’s seen that way, of expanding the world she’s created in a three-minute song and adding to it, adding a perspective to it, dissecting it in an intellectual way but not in a critical way.”

Make sure to stream Sweaty Lamarr’s single “Abbey I’m Sorry I Stole Your Man” on all platforms, and follow the artist for updates, as her upcoming EP is set to come out this summer!

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