Chris Willman Music WriterDolly Parton and Kelly Clarkson have joined forces with producer Shane McAnally to record a very different version of the Parton classic “9 to 5” as a duet for an upcoming documentary, “Still Working 9 to 5,” just announced for a premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March.The documentary’s premiere at SXSW was announced Wednesday morning, but for the filmmakers, the new recording by Parton and Clarkson counts as a big reveal, too. “We could do a documentary just on the making of the duet,” co-director/producer Gary Lane tells Variety.This new version of the theme song from the original “9 to 5” movie has a distinctly different tone from the original. “The first iteration, Dolly’s original version was very upbeat.
There was a lot of hope I would say in the song,” says co-director/producer Camille Hardman. “And this version is just a little bit melancholic,” she notes, in deference to one of the themes of the doc, “that women are still trying to get equality and it hasn’t happened yet, 42 years after this song was created.” The original plan was to ask Parton to do a new song for the doc, but McAnally had an idea for doing a refresher on “9 to 5” and, months later, created a demo that its singer-songwriter fell in love with.
Parton and Clarkson recorded their parts in November and December, and filmed themselves in the studio as well for a forthcoming music video.“Dolly actually called it ‘9 to 5: The Slow Version’,” says Lane. “It’s definitely slowed down and more haunting.
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