TED Talks Daily – "How Dolly Parton led me to an epiphany"

Speaker: Jad Abumrad
Date: September 29, 2025 (re-release; talk originally from TED 2020)
Host: Elise Hu

Overview

This episode features Jad Abumrad—creator of Radiolab—sharing a heartfelt reflection on his journalistic journey and how country music legend Dolly Parton guided him to a crucial insight about storytelling, bridging difference, and finding meaning beyond struggle. Abumrad recounts moving from stories of scientific wonder to tales of struggle and conflict, eventually arriving at an “epiphany” about resolution, connection, and the search for “the third”—a space where difference transforms into revelation.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Jad Abumrad’s Evolution as a Storyteller

(02:20 – 06:45)

• Began his career at Radiolab focused on audio storytelling, aiming to evoke “wonder” via science stories.
• Used techniques like vivid soundscapes and “hypnotic” storytelling, as shown in a recurring motif:
  • Steve Strogatz (02:42): “It’s one of the most hypnotic and spellbinding spectacles in nature…absolutely silent.”
  • Abumrad would then lead listeners into a moment of awe, crafting stories that habitually resolved with amazement and delight.
• Over time, he felt these stories became repetitive (“I have made this sound 25 times”) and questioned whether wonder was the only valid end point.

2. Encountering Complexity and “Truths in Collision”

(04:20 – 07:25)

• Recognized darker, more complex sides to storytelling—particularly when narratives clashed.
  • Recounted a striking episode interviewing a Laotian man about chemical attack allegations where the man’s lived experience clashed with scientific findings (“the interview ended in tears”).
• Realized that “there are a lot of truths in the room and we were only looking at one of them.”
• Shifted his journalistic goal: from leading listeners to moments of wonder to moments of struggle and unresolved conflict.
  • Abumrad: “The struggle kind of became the point."
• Sought out stories about consent, race, Guantanamo, focusing on the uncomfortable, sigh-inducing gray areas ("That sigh right there...That sound is kind of our current moment, right?" [06:52]).

3. The Challenge of Endings and the Dolly Parton Connection

(07:25 – 08:29)

• Abumrad faced a narrative challenge: “How do you end that story? You can’t just ‘happily ever after’ it...But if you just leave people in that stuck place, like, why did I just listen to that?”
• Intuited that Dolly Parton’s career and phenomenon could reveal an answer.
  • Observed at her concerts people of all backgrounds united: “All of these people that we are told should hate each other are there singing together.”

4. Dolly Parton’s Approach: Complexity, Identity, and Nuance

(08:29 – 13:15)

• Interviewed Dolly Parton a dozen times. She always began interviews with:

  • Dolly Parton (08:29): "Ask me whatever you ask me, and I'm gonna tell you what I want you to hear."

• Investigated Dolly’s deep connection to Tennessee and southern identity.

  • Abumrad, as a Lebanese-American raised in Tennessee, initially felt alienated from Dolly’s nostalgia, describing personal anxiety over not “belonging.”

• A transformative visit to Dolly’s real Tennessee mountain home revealed a stunning similarity to his father’s home in Lebanon—a moment of “layering” and empathy.

  • Led to conversations with his father about migration and loss.
  • Spoke with Dolly about her songs as “migration music”—not just about place, but about the ache for vanished moments and identities.

• Explored the complex, unsummarizable relationship between Dolly and her mentor Porter Wagoner.

  • When Abumrad suggested typical narratives about sexism and power, Dolly rebuffed simplification:
    • Dolly Parton (12:56): “Well, it's more complicated than that...He didn’t know how many dreams I had.”
  • Abumrad: “She kept telling me, don’t bring your stupid way of seeing the world into my story…you can’t summarize this.”

5. The “Third”: Finding Connection Beyond Difference

(13:15 – 15:17)

• Abumrad articulated his new journalistic calling: not just to display difference, but to bridge it—to seek “the third.”
• Described the psychological concept: “In psychotherapy, there’s this idea called the third…when two people come together and really commit to something…they actually make something new, a new entity that is their relationship.”
• Saw Dolly’s concerts and approach to music/fandom as “a cultural third space”—where disparate people are united in shared experience.
  • “Every story I tell has gotta find the third. That place where the things we hold as different resolve themselves into something new.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On seeking wonder:
  • Jad Abumrad (04:00): “I began to see that as my job, to lead people to moments of wonder. What that sounded like was: ‘wow, wow, wow, that’s amazing.’”
• On reaching an impasse:
  • Jad Abumrad (05:30): “…hammering at a scientific truth when someone has suffered, that wasn’t going to heal anything. And maybe I was relying too much on science to find the truth.”
• On struggle as a narrative endpoint:
  • Jad Abumrad (06:47): “That sigh right there. I wanted to hear that sound in every single story. Because that sound is kind of our current moment, right? We live in a world where truth is no longer just a set of facts to be captured. It's become a process.”
• Dolly’s forthrightness:
  • Dolly Parton (08:29): “Ask me whatever you ask me, and I'm gonna tell you what I want you to hear.”
• On attachments to home:
  • Jad Abumrad (09:01): “Now, I grew up in Tennessee, and I felt no nostalgia for that place. I was the scrawny Arab kid who came from the place that invented suicide bombing. I spent a lot of time in my room. When I left Nashville, I left.”
• On Dolly’s complexity:
  • Dolly Parton (12:56): “Well, it’s more complicated than that…He didn’t know how many dreams I had.”
• On “the third”:
  • Jad Abumrad (14:20): “In psychotherapy, there’s this idea called the third...when two people come together and really commit to something ... they actually make something new, a new entity that is their relationship.”
• Defining his new purpose:
  • Jad Abumrad (15:12): “Every story I tell has gotta find the third. That place where the things we hold as different resolve themselves into something new.”

Segment Timestamps

• Journalistic beginnings & moments of wonder (02:20–04:20)
• Realizations about truth and stories of conflict (04:20–07:25)
• The challenge of endings in narrative (07:25–08:29)
• Dolly Parton as a bridge-builder; connection to place (08:29–11:20)
• Migration, identity, and personal discovery (11:20–13:15)
• Finding revelation: “the third” and a new approach to storytelling (13:15–15:17)

Summary

In this deeply personal talk, Jad Abumrad shares how his search for narrative resolution led him through science, struggle, and ultimately to a chance revelation while reporting on Dolly Parton. Through engagement with Dolly’s life and his own heritage, he concludes that stories—and perhaps society itself—cannot end in difference or conflict, but must strive for the moment when opposites transform and a new, shared reality emerges. Dolly’s concerts, her life philosophy, and even her music exemplify this “third space,” revealing an American identity capacious enough to hold contradiction and create connection.

A compelling listen for anyone drawn to questions of storytelling, identity, and the possibility of unity in a fractured world.