The Bargain Store

This Country chart-topper uses secondhand merchandise in a bargain store as a metaphor for a woman emotionally damaged by a relationship. Contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with sex. Dolly cleared up the misinterpretation in her 2020 book Songteller. "When I wrote 'The Bargain Store,' I swear on my life that I was never thinking about love in any vulgar way," she explained. "I was using the 'bargain' as it related to a broken relationship. But every man I know thinks it's dirty. Somehow, this lyric is a dirty thing to a man. But I never saw it that way. All I was thinking of was the heart: 'If you don't mind the merchandise is slightly used, with a little mending it can be good as new.' I was saying that you'll be surprised at how good this broken heart is. Just take it. You'll never be sorry that you did. Just come inside, come inside my heart. The words just meant that I've had relationships: I've been through stuff, I'm not new at this."

The song includes the line "My life is like unto a bargain store." Mojo magazine June 2008 asked Dolly Parton whether the use of the word 'unto' was giving an archaic, Biblical eternal weight to a dime-store confession, or simply she needed two syllables to make the line scan? Parton replied: "No, I purposely did it. I could have said any number of things - it's easier to sing My life is like a bargain store. I like doing old-timey songs. It's in that minor key, which sounds old world to me, that lonesome drone- it could be a sitar or something."

This was used on Stranger Things in the season 1 episode "The Monster." It plays as Nancy and Jonathan are stocking up on gear to trap the Demogorgon.