I Woke Up Next To Dolly Parton

My book—Hey, Songwriter—woke up in the best possible creative company this morning.

Dolly Parton. 

Seeing her stand next to me, so to speak, made me teary.

Dolly was a once-in-a-lifetime entertainer and talent. A brilliant songwriter. A fantastic storyteller. 

I can add, without envy, that I would love to have had a tiny fraction of her songwriting success.

But if given the choice between a fraction of Dolly's songwriting success and embodying a fraction of her glowing spirit, kindness and wisdom? No contest.

Have I ever witnessed anyone in the public eye who could defuse rudeness, gawking, bigotry or any other negative impulse more consistently, skilfully, charismatically, lovingly, generously or with more humour, than Dolly Parton? I don’t think so. Have you? Just watch her deal with, say, Barbara Walters’ questions about being a hillbilly or the way she dressed…

Dolly had a gift—a genius. Her awareness of who she was, the talent she had, and what she believed in, was publicly clear, unblinking and unflappable—and comedically brilliant. It was a kind of down-home verbal kung fu—or maybe a sweet kiss after a firm talking to.

Dolly was tough, too. In 1974, Elvis Presley—the King—wanted to record I Will Always Love You. Dolly was over the moon. Then Elvis’s notorious manager Colonel Parker called up and told Dolly she would have to give up 50% of the song’s publishing rights for Elvis to record the song. For Dolly, the publishing rights of her songs were for her family after her death. Parker wouldn’t budge. Dolly cried all night and said no. Elvis never recorded I Will Always Love You.

Eighteen years later, for the soundtrack to the movie The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston lifted Dolly’s song to celestial heights with a jaw-dropping vocal performance. Whitney’s version became, at the time, the best-selling single by a female artist in music history. Dolly still owned all the publishing, making enough money, she joked, “to buy Graceland.” And Dolly never criticized Elvis’s manager.

Where did this genius come from? 

Dolly was born into dirt-floor poverty—she said her first doll was a corncob!—and old-time faith. From her twelve-kid upbringing in a two-room shack at the base of the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, it seems Dolly—through some kind of miraculous celestial inhalation—instinctively absorbed Jesus’ most spiritually exacting teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. 

Humility. Generosity of spirit. Treating all others as she wished to be treated. Do not judge. Love your enemies. Crack jokes and laugh whenever possible (Dolly added that to the sermon).

And from there—through the sticky trappings of show biz, fame, poverty, wealth, adoration and bigotry—she seemed to give those teachings back to the world through a gorgeous Southern twang, sparkling rhinestones, acrylic nails, body-hugging clothes and skyscraper wigs that would make Louis XIV and Marge Simpson blush. 

The irony! The contradiction! The wonder! She is the Dolly Lama.

The 5’1” Dolly in spiritual heels instinctively, beautifully stood tall for the vulnerable—for example, providing hundreds of millions of books to kids who didn’t have access to books. Dolly the librarian! Talk about a storyteller believing in storytelling.

Dolly was a country artist who explicitly loved her gay fans (and family members) when loving gay fans was not favourable to a country singer’s reputation or career. She didn’t counterpunch, she deflected—not with silence but with kind, razor-sharp, self-aware, intuitive humour and country wisdom.

When asked if she ever wished she was a man, she said no, but if she had been, she would’ve been a drag queen. And if she had been gay, she said she would’ve come running out of the closet!

As sure as Jesus ate with social outcasts, Dolly credited the inspiration for her look to the “town trash whore” (as little Dolly heard her called) who lived in the “city” closest to her holler. 

“I didn't know what any of that meant and I would just see this woman with yellow hair piled on her head, her bright red lipstick, red nails, high-heeled shoes. And I thought she was the prettiest I'd ever seen.”

In her 1991 song, Family, Dolly sang: 

Some are preachers / some are gay / some are addicts / some are strays / but not a one is turned away / when it's family

Dolly wrote 3,000 songs, from little ditties to heartbreakers to mega-hits 9 to 5, Jolene and I Will Always Love You. She was undeniably, supremely talented. But I swear that isn’t her greatest gift. It seems with every chance she got, to quote the Sermon on the Mount, she let her “light shine before others”—with that smile, those quick lines, her love, and her actions. 

What an example.

I can’t say for sure if the Sermon on the Mount was the creation of a human or a Greater Intelligence Who loves us all. I hope the latter. 

But was Dolly the creation of a higher intelligence? That’s so easy. Yes. A God with a fantastic sense of humour Who, after She was finished, gazed but didn’t ogle Her creation. She said, “It is good. Very, very good.” And it was. 

Then maybe God ogled. She couldn’t help Herself.

And Dolly, well aware of her charms, said something witty back—and we all laughed in the warmth and wisdom of her light.