Known for her big hair and her bigger voice, Parton has left an indelible mark on the entertainment industry thanks to her philanthropy, charisma, business sense, and, of course, her penchant for writing and singing unstoppably catchy country songs.

Parton may be best known for hits like “Jolene” and “9 to 5,” but she has written over 3,000 songs over the course of her seven-decade career. In 2015, she even wrote a song that was sealed in a time capsule that won’t be opened until 2046—but fortunately, most of her other songs are available for us to listen to at any time. 

Parton actually wrote many hits for other artists throughout her career. One early example was “Put It Off Until Tomorrow,” which she co-wrote with her uncle Bill Owens. The song was recorded by the artist Bill Phillips and hit No. 6 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 1966. It was the first of many times Parton would help other artists top the charts with her songs.

In part, this was a savvy business endeavor. “I love to write songs for men,” Parton wrote in her 2020 book, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics, recalling her early forays into songwriting. “And it’s a good thing I do because back then, there weren’t that many women in the country-music business to write songs for. Especially ones who weren’t writing their own songs, like Loretta Lynn was,” she added. “I didn’t have a lot of space to write songs for women so I purposefully tried to write songs that men could record. Or songs that could go either way.” 

Fortunately, Parton helped pave the way for female songwriters to shine in country music—thanks to her own star power, and also to her formidable songwriting chops.

1. “I Will Always Love You” // Whitney Houston
2. “There’ll Always Be Music” // Tina Turner
3. “Fuel to the Flame” // Skeeter Davis
4. “Rainbowland” // Miley Cyrus
5. “To Daddy” // Emmylou Harris
6. “Circle of Love” // Jennifer Nettles
7. “Waltz Me to Heaven” // Waylon Jennings

“I Will Always Love You” // Whitney Houston

This one may not come as a surprise to devoted fans, but there’s no denying that the song “I Will Always Love You” is is widely associated with Whitney Houston and her soaring, silky vocals. The song was originally written by Parton, though, who penned it in an afternoon in 1973. Amazingly, she had already written another song that day—the smash-hit “Jolene.” 

“I Will Always Love You” was written about her decision to cut ties with her music and business partner, Porter Wagoner, who had hired her to be a singer on his TV show and paved the way for her rise to superstardom. “I really felt like I needed to move on. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life being a girl singer. I knew my destiny. I knew that I had to continue doing what I felt… drawn to do,” Parton told DJ Howard Stern in 2023. Still, she felt tormented about the decision. “How am I going to make him understand how much I appreciate everything, but that I have to go? I thought, well, what do you do best? You write songs. So I sat down and I wrote this song.”

The next morning, she went in and played it for Wagoner, who started to cry. “That’s the best song you’ve ever wrote,” he said, per the BBC. “You can go if I can produce the song.”

The track was a massive hit and struck the fancy of Elvis Presley, who was set to record it until his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, demanded Parton give him half the songwriting rights, which she refused. Nearly two decades later, Houston immortalized it in the movie The Bodyguard, and the rest was music history.

“There’ll Always Be Music” // Tina Turner

Parton released this track in collaboration with Wagoner in 1973. A moving tribute to the transformative power of music, the song appeared on Tina Turner’s 1974 covers album, Tina Turns the Country On! 

When asked about that in 2023 after Turner’s death, Parton said she couldn’t recall how Turner’s cover had come about, but she was grateful it happened. “I’m always complimented when anybody wants to do my songs,” she said. “I don’t even remember what year that was, but it was long, long ago when I wrote that.” 

Apparently, Parton had another one of her songs in mind for Turner while working on her 2023 album Rockstar, but unfortunately, the recording never came to be. “I love Tina Turner,” Parton told Today that year.  “In fact, I did not know she was ill, or as ill as she was, and I wanted her to sing on my rock and roll album. Chris Lord-Alge, who mixed the album, knew her. He was going over there to do some business anyway where she lives, so he was going to take that to her. And he told me, ‘You know, she’s not in good health. I don’t think this is going to happen.’ I was really sad about that because I had the perfect song that we were going to do. I didn’t even put it on the album. It was a song I wrote called ‘Stay Out Of My Bedroom.’ Maybe I’ll do it some other time with somebody else.”

“Fuel to the Flame” // Skeeter Davis

Parton co-wrote this song with her uncle Owens. It was released by Davis in 1967 and became a hit that bolstered Davis’s already successful career. Davis was also one of the first women to achieve success as a solo female country music artist, a feat that also inspired Parton’s own career. 

“Rainbowland” // Miley Cyrus

Parton co-wrote this duet with her goddaughter Miley Cyrus, and the duo recorded it as a duet for Cyrus’s 2017 album Younger Now. “It’s really about if we could love one another a little better or be a little kinder, be a little sweeter, we could live in rainbow land,” Parton said in a 2017 interview. “It’s really just about dreaming and hoping that we could all do better. It’s a good song for the times right now.”

The song made waves when it was banned at a Wisconsin elementary school in 2023 because its lyrics “could be controversial,” per Entertainment Weekly. Cyrus’s charity organization, the Happy Hippie Foundation—which supports homeless, vulnerable, and LGBTQ+ young people—addressed the matter on X, formerly known as Twitter. “To the inspiring first-grade students at Heyer Elementary, keep being YOU,” the post read. “We believe in our Happy Hippie heart that you’ll be the ones to brush the judgment and fear aside and make all of us more understanding and accepting.” 

“To Daddy” // Emmylou Harris

Parton recorded this song in 1976 but didn’t release it until 1995. However, Emmylou Harris released a cover in 1979 that became a hit, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The song is written from a child’s point of view, and describes a mother who silently withstands years of neglect from her husband until she up and leaves. 

“Circle of Love” // Jennifer Nettles

Parton wrote this song for the 2016 film Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love, which is based on her own childhood growing up in the Smoky Mountains. In the movie, the song is sung by Jennifer Nettles, who plays Parton’s mother.

Nettles also featured the song on her holiday album To Celebrate Christmas. Later, Parton released her own version on her 2020 album A Holly Dolly Christmas. The two country music icons also sang the track together on an episode of The Voice.

“Waltz Me to Heaven” // Waylon Jennings

Parton specifically penned this tune for country music star Waylon Jennings, who released his version in 1984. That same year, she also released a version of the song for the soundtrack of the film Rhinestone with her brother Floyd on vocals. Parton also starred in the film alongside Sylvester Stallone, and wrote almost the entirety of the soundtrack.

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