Bad Wolves release their cover of Dolly Parton‘s “Jolene” today via Better Noise Music, with all proceeds benefiting Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which promotes literacy by sending books to children worldwide. The release arrives amid one of the most turbulent weeks in the band’s history. Watch the art track now.
The backstory behind this release is inseparable from the song itself. “Jolene” was originally planned as a full collaboration with Dolly Parton herself. Following Parton’s passing, the band, including multiple members, vocally opposed releasing the track, feeling it would be perceived as capitalizing on her death. Their label, Better Noise Music, proceeded regardless.
That decision was cited by guitarist AJ Rebollo as the breaking point that led him to step down from Bad Wolves earlier this week. In his departure statement, Rebollo wrote that he could not “in good faith remain a member and co-sign the decisions constantly being made FOR this band by the label,” pointing specifically to the Jolene cover as the final straw. “While the donation to her Imagination Library is an incredible choice to do something good with the profits,” he wrote, “I can’t help but feel there is ill intent behind the decision to release the song.”
That controversy follows a separate bruising week for the band, which was dropped from Skillet‘s fall 2026 US tour after online harassment targeted new frontwoman Sara “Killboy” Skinner, who was misidentified as transgender by a vocal segment of Skillet‘s fanbase. Bad Wolves stood firmly by Skinner throughout that incident.
Whatever the circumstances surrounding its release, the song itself carries real charitable weight. Every dollar from “Jolene” goes directly to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a nonprofit program that mails free books monthly to children from birth through the start of school, regardless of family income, in partner communities across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Ireland. It has gifted more than two hundred million books since its founding in 1995. That legacy deserves recognition, regardless of one’s view of the release timing.