How Dolly Parton Inspired Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Please Please Please’
Sometimes musical inspiration comes from the unlikeliest places. For example, Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” is a glorious nugget of modern pop but it was inspired by Dolly Parton and a 1970s movie star. Carpenter dismissed the idea that she worked with the wrong producer for the track.
Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Please Please Please’ was inspired by 2 country stars from the 1970s
Carpenter’s upcoming album Short n’ Sweet was produced by Jack Antonoff, one of the most important producers of the current century. He got his start in the successful indie rock band Fun. Since then, he’s worked on critically acclaimed albums by Taylor Swift, Lorde, and Lana Del Rey.
In a 2024 interview with Rolling Stone, Antonoff compared “Please Please Please” to the music of two successful singers who peaked during the 1970s and 1980s. “There’s like an Olivia Newton [John] feeling, there’s a Dolly feeling, there’s an incredibly super modern pop feeling,” Antonoff said. “The little vocal runs she does are so bizarre and unique — they’re doing this really odd, classic, almost yodel-y country thing. She’s becoming one of the biggest young pop stars, and that song is such a statement of — expressing yourself, not just lyrically, but sonically.”
It probably seems odd for Antonoff to compare Newton-John, who is primarily remembered today for the pop/rock musical Grease and the dance-pop hit “Physical,” to Parton. However, Newton-John had more successes than Grease and “Physical.” During the 1970s, she straddled the lines between pop and country. She might not have had the indelible impact on country music that Parton had, but her country songs connected with a lot of people during one of the genre’s defining decades.
Sabrina Carpenter is working with 1 f the most controversial producers ever
Working with Antonoff is a great idea on a commercial level. Nobody knows how to get an album to run up the charts quite like Antonoff. However, a lot of people feel like his style is limp and stale. His critics have accused him of removing everything that was interesting about Swift, Lorde, and Del Rey so that they could follow his playbook.
Carpenter is not sympathetic to this viewpoint. “F*** them all,” the “Espresso” singer said. “I think he’s one of the most talented people I’ve ever met. When he’s in a room, he’s able to literally touch every instrument in the room and make it sound magical. He also works very fast, which I really appreciate because I work very fast.”
In addition, Carpenter explained her goals for Short n’ Sweet. “I hope they find whatever they need to guide them through their life through my mistakes, because I think the more open I am with my experiences, the more that other people are like, ‘Oh, maybe that’s OK that that happened to me. It’s not the end of the world,'” he added.
‘Please Please Please’ is close to the top
“Please Please Please” is one of the summer songs. It is currently No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is good enough and memorable enough to reach the top of the chart, but we will have to see.
“Please Please Please” took some inspiration from Parton and Carpenter might be on her way to becoming an icon like the “I Will Always Love You” singer.
