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From heartbreaking spoken word to wry takes on the double standards women face, here are some of the late country singer’s lesser known gems
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Music — Jenny Stevens
Dolly Parton was one of the most gifted narrative lyricists ever – particularly when it came to telling the stories of women’s experiences. This is one of her more harrowing stories about a young woman (see also: The Bridge). Some will recognise this as a track on Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood’s album Nancy and Lee (where the backing singing is replaced with sweeping orchestra). But the clarity of Parton’s voice on the original, taken from her fifth album, 1970’s The Fairest of Them All, is staggering.
The lyrics follow a young woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock – by a man who has promised to return home before she starts to show. We listen as ominous clouds cast shadows over the fields the young woman can see from her window: the seasons change, and her man does not return. She is sent away to have the child in secret, to hide her parents’ shame, but her daughter is stillborn. Parton’s voice cracks as she delivers one of the final lines about the devastation unfolding for her protagonist, as she turns to her baby: “I guess she knew she’d never have her father’s arms to hold her.”
Recorded for her 1994 live album Heartsongs: Live From Home, you can hear the audience at Dollywood roar and cackle through this stomping blues number (just wait until she gets to the line about menopause). “I got those God almighty, slap somebody, PMS Blues,” she growls. There’s gags about fluid retention, mood swings, headaches and telling kids to hide from their hormonal mothers. “It’s the only time in my life I ever think about wishing I’d been a man,” she rails. It’s wild, rollicking fun.
While some would say this isn’t a deep cut, given it’s the title track of her 15th album, I’d argue it’s still an unsung gem. Melodically, it’s got the lightness of touch of Love Is Like A Butterfly, released a year earlier, but it’s lyrical heft is something else entirely. This is a story of an older woman, someone whose heart had been dragged around the block, whose dreams have been smashed and whose plans for a better life ground into dust.
The metaphor is not subtle – a woman with a history is a bargain store and all her merchandise is used and cheap – but it’s a wry take on how society treats a fallen woman, and the madonna/whore complex by which, perversely, both virginity and sex sells. The protagonist invites people to view her merchandise which, with a little care and mending, could be as good as new. “I can guarantee you’ll be completely satisfied,” she sings.
Is it bizarre? Absolutely. But it also speaks to the craven nature of women as commodities, as well as the more complex sense of longing for our broken woman to find someone who might help fix her. It’s a different tone to Parton’s more famous takedowns of rampant double standards, such as the perfect Just Because I’m A Woman, which is a direct conversation with the men who walk off and leave a woman they’ve got into trouble.
It begins with a perfect slide guitar and a startling opening line setting the scene: “In this mental institution…”
This track, also from 1970’s The Fairest of Them All, is firmly in the country music tradition of mining the deepest despair for a very visceral kind of art.
Our protagonist has been put in a psychiatric hospital by her partner but, as she says, it’s not her mind that’s broken, it’s her heart. She pleads for her father to come and get her. She needs help, she says, “but not this kind”. She is powerless, looking to another male figure in her life to love and care for her.
The spoken word part of this song sees Parton deliver a heartbreaking, poetic and raw performance, much like in her opus I Will Always Love You.
I’ve turned to this song at periods of rupture and upheaval in my life. Written by Parton, it features on the 1987 album Trio, a holy trinity of a collaboration between country music titans Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. Parton sings in the first person here, a younger version of herself, wild-eyed and full of promise, who takes to the road to escape the confines of her family. Like the seeds of a wildflower, she catches the wind and takes to the road. And we know it’s going to be OK because, as she says, “wildflowers don’t care where they grow”. It’s a song that agitates for change, and gives the listener the courage to go forth.
If there ever was a song that captures the fracturing of a relationship, with all its complexities and power plays and love-hate ferocity, this is surely it. This song featured on the album Two of a Kind, the sixth of an eventual 13 albums Parton would release with her one-time mentor, Porter Wagoner. He was one of the biggest country stars of the 60s and 70s who brought her in to perform on his weekly hit TV show in her early career. However, as Parton’s fame began eclipse Wagoner’s, he sought to control her, and their relationship strained to the point of snapping in 1974, when she left the show. Parton’s vocal harmony skips over Wagoner’s with the levity of a bird skimming water, as she sings the blow: “To love and hate at the same time / the line between the two is fine”.
I heard Parton’s soaring gospel song used in a 2021 revival of Larry Kramer’s autobiographical play The Normal Heart, about the Aids epidemic in early 1980s New York, at London’s National Theatre. As the lifeless body of a bright and brilliant young man who was taken so cruelly lays on a bed on the stage, a rendition of this song plays. It is one of the most moving moments of theatre I have ever seen. While a hit on the country charts in the US, it never had mainstream chart success. Featuring on Parton’s 1977 album New Harvest… First Gathering, she often said it was about her rebirth after the fraying of her relationship with Wagoner. When she says she can finally see the light of a clear blue morning, it’s impossible not to believe her. It is pure, exhilarating hope pressed into vinyl.
Another theme in the Parton catalogue is her ability to pre-empt any sexist, presumptive comments by making herself the butt of the joke first – and the joke would be funnier than anyone else could dare make. She did it from the off with her early hit Dumb Blonde – and boy did it show she was, as she sang, “nobody’s fool”. Backwoods Barbie, the titular track from her 2008 album, was a riotous return to country after a decade of bluegrass and folk records. “Don’t let these false eyelashes lead you to believe / That I’m as shallow as I look ‘cause I run true and deep,” she sings.
Featuring on 1968’s Just Because I’m a Woman, Parton’s second album, this eerie song is another story about a young woman in trouble. Parton’s protagonist and her beau meet on a bridge at night, the moon is bright, and “desire swept through us”. A nearby meadow is sought, and you can guess the rest. The final verse sees the woman alone, pregnant, her feet creeping further to the edge of the bridge. And then the song ends as abruptly as The Sopranos and as mystically as Bobbie Gentry’s Ode to Billy Joe, another mysterious song about events on a bridge. “Here is where I end it,” Parton sings. Then snap, silence. We will never know what happened.
Originally an album track on her 1971 album Coat of Many Colors, this song was revived for the soundtrack of the 2018 film Dumplin’ when Parton and Sia recorded a cover . The original, in my opinion, is Parton’s answer to Let It Be or Hey Jude in terms of anthem status. It’s more than a song, it’s a call to action and a cry for communion. “Here I am, reaching out, to give you love that you’re without,” she sings in its glorious, rousing chorus. Because what was Dolly Parton if not a hand reaching out in the dark – one of wisdom, calm, unity. Here I am, she sings. And that is where she will always be, in that voice, in those songs.
The lyrics follow a young woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock – by a man who has promised to return home before she starts to show. We listen as ominous clouds cast shadows over the fields the young woman can see from her window: the seasons change, and her man does not return. She is sent away to have the child in secret, to hide her parents’ shame, but her daughter is stillborn. Parton’s voice cracks as she delivers one of the final lines about the devastation unfolding for her protagonist, as she turns to her baby: “I guess she knew she’d never have her father’s arms to hold her.”
This report is published with credit to theguardian.com. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on theguardian.com →
Source: theguardian.com · Jenny Stevens. Published 26 Aug 2026, 09:00 am.
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