Throwback Thursday: Dolly Parton, ‘Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That’

Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly series showcasing an album, single, music video or performance of a bygone era and its personal and/or cultural significance.

I was no older than four or five when I realized I wasn’t straight. Having grown up in the ’90s, and being so young, sexuality was still a mostly foreign concept to me. But I knew I was different. The smorgasbord of hunky gentlemen in Dolly Parton‘s “Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That” music video always did a little too much for me. The lead single to her 1989 record, White Limozeen, the countrypolitan number (which went on to become her umpteenth chart-topper) employs charged masculinity in spades with its sensual and provocative video, featuring a lineup of characters vying for Parton’s gaze.

“Here comes my baby / Dragging my heart behind / He’s drivin’ me crazy / Who says love is blind?” she harpoons, staging a story of heartbreak and an ex’s brazenness in flaunting a new lover right in front of her. Gospel tunesmiths Bob Carlisle and Randy Thomas probably never expected their rather innocent story of heartbreak to be treated with such a seductive accompaniment. The visual (directed by Jack Cole, also known for his work with Reba, Travis Tritt and others) is your classic late-80s-splashed sequence, set at a casting session for the song’s video. As each ruby-nosed, sultry-skinned, scruffy-haired man takes the stage, Parton is overcome with fits of giggles; some acts are obvious plunders, while others are taking themselves completely serious. From a guy in a dinosaur costume and an Elvis Presley impersonator to a swarthy dude in chaps ⎯⎯ yeah, that guy ⎯⎯ it was equal parts silly and heart-palpitating. “I just can’t stand it,” Parton coos. And neither could/can I.

“I’m a soft hearted woman / He’s a hardheaded man / And he’s gonna make me feel just as bad as he can,” she sings, a cool, wily play against a *cough* suggestive storyline. “He’s got himself a mean streak / A half a mile wide / But now he’s dancing on this heart of mine…”

It’s a piece of pop culture history that instilled me with the confidence and fearlessness to embrace my personal truths. I’ll never forget it. Dolly, I thank you.

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