254. Dolly Parton: How to Make Decisions (Even If They Break Your Heart)

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I chased desire.

I made sure I got what's mine.

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things and happy Dolly Ween.

Okay, today,

you are not going to believe this, but Dolly Parton is here.

Dolly is going to tell us how she makes her toughest decisions by trusting her gut,

even when it breaks her heart.

That will blow your mind.

She's going to teach us how to be brave enough to try something brand new at 77.

And she's going to tell us how she's been mothering the world her entire life through just amazing projects like lately the Imagination Library, where I think, sister, does every kid in the freaking country get a book from Dolly Parton?

Is that a thing?

It is for

promoting literacy in early education.

So if at a lot of, you know, like child development centers and places,

under-resourced places throughout the country, you just sign up and then you get a book every month to your house.

It's wild.

And she started that because her dad could not read and never went to school and so didn't have a chance to learn to read and write.

So she created that in his honor.

Very, very cool.

Oh, God, Dolly kills me.

Okay.

And before we begin, I'm just going to say that my favorite Dolly Parton quote ever is this, as follows.

My whole family knows.

Somebody asked her how she feels when people call her a dumb blonde.

And she said, it doesn't bother me because i know i'm not dumb and i'm not blonde

all right welcome dolly parton hi there oh

hi

hi

hello everybody

overwhelmed with joy such an honor to be with you miss parton well thank you i'm proud to be with you so thanks for the nice compliment oh my goodness we just want to tell our listeners the joy that is happening today.

So everybody,

Dolly Parton is here.

From Locust Ridge to global fame, you, Ms.

Parton, have been a constant leader as a business innovator, advocate for education.

Your courage to do the right thing.

And perhaps just as importantly, when you learn something is hurtful, your resolve to immediately change it is what the world needs more of.

From Imagination Library's 200 million books to schoolchildren, to Dollywood's reinvigoration of an entire local economy, to lifting us up with when life is good again and investing in our vaccine, you are always there for us.

There is no doubt that your gift of traveling through for Trans America not only changed hearts, but saved lives.

Your stories of those who are shut out and shut in, those counted out or cast out, the way you treat each person's story with the inherent dignity and respect and awe that every person deserves.

Thank you for that gift to the world.

Wow.

I don't know if I can measure up to all of that.

You're getting emotional here.

Wow.

Well, thank you so much.

I don't know that I'm all that, but I try to do what I can.

And I'm just, I've been around long enough to ought to be doing something good for somebody.

And I've had a good, long, productive life.

And I like sharing and I like loving people and accepting people for who and how they are because that's how I want to be treated.

So thank you for all those wonderful remarks.

And like I said, I don't know if I can measure up, but I'll do my best.

You already have.

So that's done.

We wanted to say that you so often use songwriting as a way to tell the untold stories of underdogs and outsiders.

And the underdog outsider stories you choose to tell are often those of women, women who have had abortions, women who have been committed to institutions by their own husbands, women trying to hold families together and working so damn hard to stay afloat.

What's your favorite story that you've told about a woman's life?

One that's changed you to know and to tell?

Well,

I think one that changed me and actually was very helpful, I think, to a lot of women was a song, was the name of my first album.

And it came from Honest Place.

It's my song, Just because i'm a woman and that was my first rca album and i wrote that about it's just really about you know i can see you're disappointed by the way you look at me uh you know i'm sorry that i'm not the woman you thought i'd be like someone thinking that they've married a virgin when they haven't anyway so i made my mistakes but listen and understand my mistakes are no worse than yours just because i'm a woman and that goes all the way through the whole thing about just you know talking about those kinds of things that a man will take a good girl and ruin her reputation.

But when he wants to marry, well, that's a different situation.

He'll look for an angel to wear his wedding band, you know, and it's like, well, you know, he's left somebody else, you know, just broken and laying in the sand, so to speak.

So it's like, I know that I'm no angel, you know, like he thought I'd be.

So anyways, my mistakes are no worse than yours just because I'm a woman.

And this goes on and on about that sort of a thing.

So I think we often go through that.

And that was a need that I filled within myself myself because I'd been married to my husband about eight months.

And then he started asking me questions about my past.

And I said, now, I don't want to lie to you because I'm a pretty open, honest person.

So don't ask me nothing you don't want the truth about.

So anyway, I told the truth and he wasn't too happy about that.

And

then I wrote that song.

So I've always been one to.

you know, to uphold myself as a woman and to uphold other women as I can because I've written many songs, as you mentioned, about women and their situations, songs that wouldn't play on the radio, like Down from Dover about an unwed mother, and The Bridge about a

girl that had been left behind, left with a baby, and all that.

So, yeah, I kind of cover it all.

I'm a songwriter.

I am

obsessed with you as a business icon.

It just feels like you were so

ridiculously ahead of the times in terms of the decisions that you made that I imagine felt hard.

So

I'm wondering if you can tell us the story about when Elvis Presley

asked you to record your song.

What did you tell him?

Because your confidence in yourself.

to say what you needed to say to Elvis Presley.

Well, let me clarify that whole story because sometimes it gets distorted.

That was one of the hardest business decisions that I have ever had to make.

Elvis loved the song and he wanted to record the song.

And I'd never met Elvis before, and I was going to get to meet him at the session that day.

And it was I Will Always Love You, right?

That was the song.

The song, I will always love you.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I thought I had said that.

But anyway, it was the song, I will always love you.

And so he loved that.

And even Priscilla told me years later that he sang that song to her when the day they divorced and they were coming down off the steps of the courthouse.

So it wasn't Elvis.

So don't blame Elvis.

I loved Elvis.

And so I was ready to go.

I was so excited.

I mean, I told everybody, Elvis was recording my song.

I love you, love you.

And the night before, late afternoon, the day before the session, Colonel Tom Parker had tried to get in touch with me.

And so I thought it was about maybe to ask if I'd be willing to do pictures or, you know, that sort of thing.

So he proceeds to tell me that they do not record anything with Elvis unless they have the publishing or at least have the publishing.

And I'd already had a number one song on it myself.

And so that was the most important copyright in my publishing company.

And I told him, I said, well, I'm not going to be able to do that.

And he said, well, then we're not going to be able to record the song.

And I even said, I think, does Elvis know about that?

And he said something to the effect of like, like i'm elvis's manager and i make the business decisions and i said well this is a heartbreaker for me uh but i'm not going to be able to do it and so i didn't and that broke my heart but i felt i had to stand up for my my rights for my creativity and for the things that i'm hoping to leave for my family when i'm out here

and was it difficult Did you struggle with it?

Or was it just you knew you had a bright line?

My songwriting and my intellectual property, it stays with me and that's it?

If it had been maybe another song that was not that important, if it had been something new, I might have, I might have considered, you know, have splitting the publishing, you know, to get Elvis to sing something, but not that song, because it had already proven itself.

It had been number one, you know, already.

But that was hard, but that's the kind of decisions you have to make as a business person.

But yes, it broke my heart.

I cried all night about it.

And then, even now, in my rock album, I wrote a song about it called I Dreamed About Elvis.

And it's all about Elvis coming to me and in my sleep and tell, you know, and it tells the whole story about the song and Colonel Tom screwing that up about us singing I'll always love you.

So I sang it with Ronnie McDowell, who sounds exactly like Elvis.

And I had a conversation with Elvis and he sang with me on I'll Lovely Love You and used the Jordan Airs.

And so it's a real special cut from the album that tells that story.

So I said, I've got to hear Elvis, or at least a sound alike, see how he would sound on this song.

So that's what I did.

But anyway, getting back to being a businesswoman, those are just the decisions.

you have to make.

I don't even know that I even considered that one for a moment.

But I had to make that decision as I've had to make other heartbreaking decisions through the years.

But I just believe that I have to protect my rights.

And it's so interesting because when you say you're able to make decisions that break your heart, it means that there's something else in you that is above and beyond even your own heart.

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I'm a spiritual person too.

I feel like I always have one foot in the spiritual world and one in this world, and I'm always trying to figure that out.

You make decisions as someone who's so grounded in something.

Don't you have like a morning spiritual routine that you go through each morning?

Is that something that

you do?

Oh, I've always done that.

I've always been a person that I do my prayers, I do my affirmations, I do my

requests, so to speak, and I just send it out there.

But that part of me that's not my heart, when I say it breaks my heart to do it, then I have to draw on my higher wisdom.

I have to draw on that thing that's bigger than me.

I have to try to and listen very close to what that voice is saying to me.

And that's how I make so many of my decisions.

A lot of people call that your gut feeling, you know, like I knew in my gut that that was the thing to do.

Well, I know in my heart and in my higher self what the right things are because I pray about it and leave myself open to the right answers.

And the only times I've ever made major mistakes, if you want to call them that, are times that I didn't listen to that voice and allowed a situation or someone to kind of,

you know, not just to say, oh, you know what, maybe it's not that big of a deal.

But I always pay for it if I go against that higher wisdom.

Our friend Cheryl Strain says, sometimes you have to be brave enough to break your own heart.

So we need to tell you that in our home, we listened to your new album with our 15-year-old, who was as blown away that we were talking to you today as our 80-year-old dad.

That is a weird thing.

That's weird.

You're the icon of the 15-year-olds

and of the 80-year-olds.

Wow.

Okay.

So the new album is a damn delight.

Rock star, besides some new fantastic songs.

You collaborated with so many greats, including our dear friend Brandi Carlisle.

So that was a special moment for us.

I love her too.

Oh, isn't she just a special human being?

Oh, she is.

She's a doll.

I've loved her for years.

We've always had a connection.

We always

talk about our writing, but we talk about life.

And we're just very similar in our spirit and in the way that we create and the way we feel about people.

She's got a good little heart in her and she is so gifted.

And I respect and appreciate all God's gifts.

And she's certainly got a great one.

We could not agree more.

But getting back to your 80-year-old and your 15-year-old, I've been around a long time.

I've been for six decades.

I have been in show business, in the business, growing.

And people kind of have grown up with me.

And when

I was lucky enough to be on Hannah Montana with my little fairy goddaughter, Molly Cyrus, who sings one of the songs in the album with me, her song, Wrecking Ball.

But when when I was on Hannah, Montana, well, I just started a whole new career with all the young kids, like a little kid, loved Aunt Dolly, because that's what I was on the show.

And so they have followed me too.

But then the eight-year-olds and the people like that were following me.

when I was growing in the business.

So I think that people feel like they know me.

I'm like a relative, someone they've always known and that they've always kind of liked.

It's like, oh, Aunt Dolly's coming.

You have a good time.

So I kind of feel like people just relate to me because they've always seen me

it just seemed like so much fun listening to rock star what was your favorite part of recording it

well i just loved the idea that i was going to do a a rock album here i'm 77 years old and i'm going to be a rock star and so i thought well i have to call it rock star just for fun and i did it because they put me in the rock and roll hall of fame and I didn't feel I'd done enough to earn that particular title.

So I thought, well, I got to have a rock album to go along to kind of earn my keep, so to speak.

But then when I started doing these great iconic songs in the studio by myself,

I was thinking, wow, wouldn't it be cool to get some of these great iconic artists that sing, that wrote or sang on these songs originally?

And I thought, how cool would that be?

That is cool.

Just getting in the studio, getting to know some of these people personally, and just hearing their voices and mine live at the same time,

or just hearing us, you know, hearing their in my headphones, just hearing that was amazing.

For instance, when I did Magic Man with Anne Wilson, who is a fantastic singer.

I mean, I had to really put on my top belt for, you know, for some of that.

stuff because I thought, well, I have to, she's a great singer.

So I have to really dig down deep and get everything I have,

you know, to match that because no way you can outsing them, but you want to try to be as good as, or at least not to embarrass yourself.

So it was fun to get in the studio.

It was kind of a challenge, but a sweet,

you know, melodic kind of, you know, challenge on, you know, on some of the stuff.

And we weren't fighting, but it was almost kind of like a, you know.

competition.

We'd look at each other, laugh and think, oh yeah, you're going to hit that note.

Well, I'm going to hit this one.

You know, oh yeah, you think you can outdo me?

Well, watch this.

how did you narrow it down to those songs they must have been overwhelming that's a very interesting creative endeavor to try to do that yeah it's funny i've got a kick out of when you said how did you narrow it down i think narrow it down nobody ever intended to do 30 songs ever in their whole life that's true i had not intended to do that many songs.

Usually when you record any album, you go in and you have a few extras, you know, but you think, oh, good, I'll have a few left in the can.

We call it, you know, songs left on the shelf for bonus tracks or to re-release some other time.

But I was just doing this on a demo scale.

I didn't tell anybody I was actually recording the album, my management, nobody, because I just went in with Kent Wells, who's my musical director.

I said, I don't want you to tell nobody.

And we kind of swore the musicians to secrecy, don't be talking about this till we see what we've got and then see if this is really something i need to be doing so anyhow we got great musicians and i kept recording these songs and then i thought oh i forgot so-and-so i forgot this and carl's favorite song of this and so i just kept recording until one day plus i was going to just narrow down to like 12 maybe at the most you know 12 or 13 songs and so one day kent said now dollar we got to stop you can't record every damn song that's ever been written in rock and roll So, finally, we stopped.

And then we thought, when we got ready to kind of think about putting the album together, we thought, we can't leave this out, we can't leave this out, we can't leave that out.

So, we thought, well, I thought, well, why don't I just put it out?

I've never done a rock album, never going to do another one.

So, I thought, well, let's just do it.

So, we did it.

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You once said about being underestimated.

By the time they think I don't know what's going on, I've got the money and I'm gone,

which I want to tattoo on my body.

I am so interested in this idea of like you being underestimated and what that may have to do with your very feminine fashion persona presentation.

What do you think that has to do, if at all, with this underestimation?

And how do you use fashion to express yourself and to navigate your way through culture?

And what does that have to do with being underestimated or not?

Well, actually, the way I look came from a very serious place.

It's a country girl's idea of glam, just like my little song, Backwoods Barbie.

You know, I'm just a backwards Barbie, too much makeup, too much hair, but don't be fooled by thinking that the goods are not all there.

And don't let these false eyelashes lead you to believe that I'm as shallow as I look, you know, because

there's a lot to me.

And so that's back in the day, back in the early days when I had had said what you just said, and I've got the money and gone,

before they realize it, meaning that back in the early days, still still looking trashy, like I did more so even back then, I just was always myself.

I just always felt certain, you know, I had to dress a certain way because I was comfortable.

But I have to admit, I could see why people would think, oh, that girl can't know much.

She got to be a dumb blonde.

You wouldn't be smart and, you know, dressed like that going into a business meeting.

But I had no problems with any of that because I had six brothers, my dad, my uncles, my grandpas, and I love men.

I'm not intimidated to walk in a room, you know, with a bunch of men.

So, but when someone, a lot of these really smart businessmen in those early days, I knew I had a product.

And I would, you know, I would often say, look, I think I got something that can make us all a bunch of money.

You know, that type of an attitude.

So, but when you first go in, sometimes when you look like that, some of them just thinking about that and looking about that, not paying attention to the business, you know, and so.

before they would realize it, sometimes I'd made a deal that they couldn't get get out of.

And so that's kind of what I meant.

So don't take anybody for granted that, you know, judging that book by the cover.

Yeah.

I use that song.

So that's basically what I meant.

Don't judge anybody and don't judge me because there's a whole lot to me.

And I can't tell anybody else how to run their business.

But I've often said I'm a very professional Dolly Parton.

And that's the only person I'm really responsible for, you know, in business or anything else.

You can share all your knowledge or anything you know, but you're the one that's responsible for you and the decisions that you make.

Yeah.

When you came to Nashville and you were doing this from the beginning, this fashion, this style sense has always been you.

And Behind the Scenes, which is your new book, tracks all of that so beautifully.

But people were trying to get you to change that early in Nashville.

Yes.

When do you think it switched to when people understood, oh, she's doing something here?

And they stopped trying to get you to change.

Well, pretty soon after I'd had my first,

people started paying attention when I started having hit records.

Having songs that I had written that other people were singing.

And so, yeah, that was when at first people were thinking, hey, she's not as shallow as she looks, you know, that kind of thing.

But I thought people would love seeing my progression and, and you know to chronicle my whole life in pictures because there's some pretty ridiculous funny stuff in there i even laughed out loud myself you know trying to put these pictures and things together thinking were you serious about that darling i thought well i guess i must have been because i had it on and i was really i was really supporting it so

that was so

Yeah, I was working it.

And what's great, I get a chance to talk about all the great people that have helped make me what I am, to help create that image and the clothes that I've worn from my early days of mama making some of my first little stage clothes to the next door neighbor making clothes to my first people in Nashville and then on up to where.

uh like you're talking about on the on the oscars singing my song traveling through so i just tell the stories about where i was who these people were what i was doing at the time so i i'm really proud because it tells more stories like what we're talking about today yeah I used to be a third grade teacher, reading teacher, and I'm a writer now.

And so you and the Imagination Library move my heart so, so much.

Abby and I always talk about this, which is that some of the women that we know in our lives or in the world who have the most vibrant and effective kind of world-changing mothering love

are people who are not raising their own children.

The most amazing mothering people

who mother the whole planet.

And then, so can you tell us, what's the last thing you've done to mother the world that you are most proud of?

Well, I'm always mothering somebody.

Even as I was leaving this morning, I've got little nieces and nephews that I keep overnight sometimes.

But I always believed that God didn't let me have children, so everybody's kids could be mine.

And I think I've proven that a lot through the imagination library everybody comes to me for their mothering i'm known as the dolly mama in my family and with my friends you know they come for advice they come cry on my shoulder they come for whatever they need to do i'm just the one that's you know that's kind of there because i've always i've always been everybody's aunt dolly you know and so it's just a love inside of me because i grew up like i said we there's i'm from a family of 12 and i get a lot of my love and stuff that I was taught through my own mother and my grandpa who was a preacher so we taught that you know it's better to give than to receive and you gotta love one another so that that was instilled in me and that's just part of who I am yeah it sure is I want to ask you for some personal advice so we have a little one who's entering the music industry she's 17 right she's 17

Brandy's producing her and she's just a little creative songwriter that's what she loves the most and now she's entering into this world.

What advice would you give to

a little budding songwriter who's entering the business world?

Well, first of all, I think music is a wonderful, wonderful thing to have in your life, to learn to play the guitar, even if you never make it as a success.

in the business, to be able to write songs about things you see and feel and to be able to sing them.

but it's wonderful if you can stick with that but even i always tell my little nieces and nephews learn to play the guitar you'll be the hit of any any party you'll be the hit of any camp you know campfire gathering or whatever if you can play you know everybody gets sing along you'll be popular anyway and then if you're good enough you know if you're good enough then you can become famous and play your guitar like you know ed sharon you can sit around a fire and sing it or you can you know stand out on a stage in front of a hundred thousand people into it.

But I would just say to be true to yourself.

And if you love it that much, you've got to put the time and effort.

Nobody ever,

ever made anything unless you worked that dream.

I remember when I first started playing guitar, my little fingers were so sore and so blistered and hurt so bad.

But I kept playing that until they became calloused on the tips where I could actually play.

They do.

Real guitar players, you know, you've got those fingers there.

You've got to work it.

But most, even some of my own family, when they get to where them fingers start hurting, they quit learning to play.

I said, well, you're never going to get anywhere if you're not willing to deal with a callus.

You're not willing to deal with a problem, you know, that comes up, you know, in your life.

There's a lot of calluses out there.

Oh, God.

You just name them different things.

But I would just say stay with it and enjoy it.

above everything else and just keep trying and just keep focused.

And like I said, be you and gather your own strength and just step out and don't be afraid of it.

My motto is, or I've always said that my desire to do something is greater than my fear of it.

I'll be honest.

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You've been in the industry for six decades.

You are a businesswoman.

You are a musician.

You've done, it seems like everything.

What is the identity or title that you feel most at home calling yourself?

I'm just Dolly.

I'm just Dolly doing everything that Dolly wants to do or that I feel I'm capable of doing, making a difference.

So I'm very proud.

A lot of people ask me if I have one thing, you know, that I'm proud to stuff.

That's really kind of a hard question because I'm very, very proud of, like we were talking about, the Imagination Library, that I can get that many books in the hands of that many children.

But I'm also proud that I'm a member of the Grand Old Opry.

I'm proud that I can be a songwriter.

So I want to be known for everything that I do that's worthy of calling attention to.

Wow.

One of the things that

keeps running through my head is I've heard you say that your favorite song that you wrote was Coat of Many Colors.

I don't know if that's true, but I read it.

And also it's my daughter's favorite book that you turned into that book.

And it's amazing to me because that song is a lot about the love and care that your mother put into that.

gorgeous jacket that she made you that also people were making fun of you about because it was all quilted together.

So you came from

this cabin, no no running water.

Your father was a sharecropper.

Your delivery of your birth was paid with cornmeal, with your coat of many colors that became such a part

of how we know you to this book about all of this fashion.

And do you ever think about

the way your mom,

you know, thinking back to the time where she makes you this coat and it becomes this moment in your life where you love it, but people make make fun of you for it.

And now you have all of your fashions and the impact of that on the world.

Like, what is the connection you make to those two in your head?

I make a lot of connection to that because just like what you were saying, just all those patches in that coat are really, you know, they really signify so much of what I've done in my life.

Mine has been a life of many colors.

And it is true that that's my favorite song because it does signify so much more.

It deals with the bullying.

It deals with accepting, you know, acceptance.

It deals with the love of family and certainly my mother.

But

that little song, that little story has meant so much to so many people.

And so for so many different reasons.

It's like people, so many people have been made fun of for one reason or another.

It's a terrible feeling to be made fun of for any reason.

to not be accepted as yourself for any reason.

You just need to

love one another and to try to be open-hearted and accepting of people and things and life, of your own self as well.

Miss Parton, thank you.

You being yourself on purpose for so long in front of us has allowed all of us to be more of ourselves on purpose.

And we are so grateful for you.

Thank you so much to all of you.

And I hope I've helped somebody out.

As always, you have.

You have.

Bye, Pod Squad.

See you next time.

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We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.

I give you Tish Milton and Brandi Carlisle.

I walked through fire, I came out the other side.

I chased desire,

I made sure

I got what's mine,

and I continue

to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line.

Cause we're adventurers, and heartbreaks are back.

A final destination

lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to belong.

We'll finally find a way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do a heart pain.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the problem,

sometimes

things fall apart.

And I continue to believe

the the best

people are free.

And it took some time,

but I'm finally fine.

Cause we're adventurers, and heartbreaks are map.

Our final destination

lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a hard thing.

We're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay with that.

We've stopped asking directions

in places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to belong.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do hard things.

Yeah, we can do hard things

Yeah, we

can do hard

things