How can you say enough about the talent of Dolly Parton? How can anyone possibly find the words strong enough to define the joy, positivity and heart she brought to everything?
First, you start with the fact that she wrote some of the best songs of all time – two of them in what is believed to be just one day: Jolene and I Will Always Love You.
Just think about that for a moment. Whenever you’ve hummed along to those lyrics, thinking about the woman being broken by Jolene and the woman longing for a relationship that was ended and singing – as Whitney Houston later would – With the Sweet memories, that is all I’m taking with me. Those two songs. Those very different lyrics, with their very different beats and chordal progressions, coming from the mind of the one woman, in one day.
As she said on the Bobby Bones show in 2017, “that was a good writing day”.
You note her iconic performance in 9 to 5, and the song she wrote and sang to match the moment. The film was inspired by the real organising movement of women workers fighting against pay discrimination and sexual harassment. Dolly, of course, turned the story into a chart-topping hit that earned her an Oscar nomination.
You note that the melodies are fun, sad, and catchy, and will be stuck in your head all day. The lyrics, meanwhile, tell both simple and complex tales. Stories of love, heartbreak, farewelling a professional partnership, dancing, and “working nine to five, just to make a living.”
You don’t shy away from the fact that Dolly Parton’s distinct voice matched her distinct way of looking, always gorgeous – every detail about her hair and makeup intentional and full of effort that she wanted to put in. Heels, wigs, rhinestones. Presenting the way she wanted to be presented, knowing others underestimated her at their peril. As she said at one point, “it costs a lot to make a person look this cheap.”
And there was also Dolly Parton the philanthropist. She created the Imagination Library to honour her father, who quit school to work on a farm and struggled to read — a library that has since sent more than 300 million books to children. She helped raise money for households affected by wildfires, and put money into COVID vaccine research, later posing as she received her vaccine.
No scandals. No legacy that makes you feel icky about singing those songs. No being dragged into culture wars, as much as people tried. Just a ridiculously talented songwriter and performer that we were luckily enough to share some years with, and we’ll always be proud to listen along and sing her songs.
It’s sad to think the simple acts of songwriting that Dolly Parton delivered may never be the same again. Not in a world of AI and slop where even if AI doesn’t write the entire thing, it may move the thing along – finalise a lyric that couldn’t be found by the human writing it, or maybe apply that extra little note that brings perfection to a thing that never should have been perfect.
And for all that AI has and willl deliver in the future – everything stolen from our collective creative history – so much would have come from Dolly herself, including on one day in 1972 when she wrote about Jolene, and she wrote about urging the person she shared a professional relationship with “please don’t cry” and “so I’ll go, but I know” and that “I’m wishing you joy, and happiness, but above all this, I’m wishing you love.”
Dolly Parton died peacefully in Nashville. She was eighty, beautiful years old.