Why did Dolly Parton record a song in Welsh?

There is a particular magic when a song becomes so archetypal that it no longer belongs to its composer. “Jolene” has been covered by everyone from Miley Cyrus to the White Stripes, but this Welsh-and-English hybrid feels different—less a tribute, more a transmigration. Language is not just vocabulary; it is a different emotional physics. In English, Jolene is a plea, desperate and intimate. In Welsh, with its soft mutations and singing cadences, the same words may become something closer to an ancient spell—a lament that could have been carved into a standing stone. Why would Dolly Parton, of all people, reach for Welsh? The article at BBC News doesn't give us the full backstory, but the question itself is delicious. Maybe it is heritage, maybe it is sheer delight in the sound, or maybe—and this is the Weird & Wild reading—certain songs are quantum-entangled with certain languages. A melody is a waveform; a lyric is a measurement. The moment someone thought“Jolene” in Welsh, the song's possibilities collapsed into a new, shimmering state that had always existed in the multiverse. This also reminds us that culture is not a straight line but a web of strange attractors. A girl named Jolene from the American South suddenly finds herself whispering through a language spoken by fewer than a million people, mostly in Wales. That is not dilution; that is expansion. Every translation is a small act of parallel-universe creation, and when an icon like Dolly Parton participates, she validates the weird truth that identity is fluid, borders are imaginary, and a song can be homesick for a place it has never been. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9y7lkpvn663o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss