‘Vaccine, vaccine’: Dolly sings ‘Jolene’ rewrite before shot

By Mirror | 3yrs ago | 2 min read

Dolly Parton has spoken of her joy at getting the Covid vaccine - after ploughing $1m of her own money to help fund it.

The music legend donated the money to Vanderbilt University Medical Center - a partner of the US company Moderna that has developed the COVID-19 vaccine.

The 75-year-old was seen receiving the jab in a new video. She said: “I am very happy that I am going to get my Moderna shot today and I wanted to get out there and tell everyone that you should do it. I even changed one of my songs to fit the occasion.”

The star then proceeded to sing her "new" song “Vaccine” to the tune of her biggest hit Jolene. She added: ”I am dead serious about the vaccine. If we want to get back to normal, that would be a great shot in the arm if we could get back to that. I just want to say to all those cowards out there, don't be such a chicken squat. Go out there and get the shot.”

After being injected, Dolly said: “That didn't hurt.” She announced she had donated the sum for coronavirus research, in April.

Moderna announced its coronavirus vaccine may be 94.5% effective against Covid-19, and Dolly is namechecked in the preliminary report.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the report states that the work was supported by the "Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund (Vanderbilt University Medical Center)" amongst other groups. Moderna's president Stephen Hoge previously told Sky News that through her financial support of Vanderbilt, Parton had indeed helped fund early research and clinical trials that led to the success. "Yes, that's true," he said.

The development comes after Parton tweeted in April: "My longtime friend Dr Naji Abumrad, who's been involved in research at Vanderbilt for many years, informed me that they were making some exciting advancements towards research of the coronavirus for a cure. "I am making a donation of 1 million dollars to Vanderbilt towards that research and to encourage people that can afford it to make donations."