Tennessee Homesick Blues

"New York City ain't no kinda place for a country girl with a friendly face," Dolly Parton sings in "Tennessee Homesick Blues," which sums up her character's plight in the 1984 movie Rhinestone. Like Dolly, Jake Farris grew up the Great Smoky Mountains, where life was a lot simpler than in the Big Apple, where Jake tries to carve out a country music career by performing in a seedy nightclub called The Rhinestone. To get out of her contract, Jake bets her boss that she can transform anyone into a country sensation. Unfortunately that anyone turns out to be a New York cabbie played by Sylvester Stallone. Critics and audiences weren't kind to Sly's musical attempts and the movie was a flop. The soundtrack, however, spawned two hit singles and peaked at #22 on the Country Albums chart.

This bittersweet reminiscence of country life was the soundtrack's lead single. It peaked at #1 on the Country chart.

The soundtrack is mostly made up of compositions by Dolly based on stories in the movie. This tune especially hit her close to home: "It reminded me of when I first started writing songs about home," she noted in her 2020 book, Songteller. "'Tonight I'll sleep in Mama's feather bed' and lines like that kind of took me back."