Many tears were shed over a song Dolly Parton wrote in the mid-’70s – an emotive ballad that ended up being a global hit for another singer.
I Will Always Love You was originally released on Parton’s 1974 album Jolene, and was a No 1 hit on the US Hot Country Songs chart. It was 18 years later that Whitney Houston’s version of the song became one of the biggest hit records of all time.
But as Parton revealed, I Will Always Love You was not the simple love song that its title implied. Instead, it was a farewell message to one of the most important collaborators in her career.
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Missouri-born country singer Porter Wagoner was so successful in the late ’60s that he hosted his own syndicated TV show.
It was in 1967 that Parton first appeared on The Porter Wagoner Show, and for the next seven years the two singers regularly performed together.
By 1974, however, Parton felt the need to spread her wings and focus on her solo career. She would also admit that she and Wagoner had often butted heads during their long working relationship.
I Will Always Love You was her way of saying goodbye.
As Parton recalled in an interview with The Bobby Bones Show: “I was trying to get out, go out on my own… and the fact that we had one of those love-hate relationships, it was just hard to move on.”
She said of Wagoner: “He wasn’t listening to anything I had to say. So I went home and wrote that song, took it back the next morning and said, ‘Sit down. I need you to hear something.’ I sang it and he was crying, so he said, ‘Okay, you can go provided I can produce that record.’ So he did.”
As it turned out, Bob Ferguson was credited as the producer of the Jolene album, but Parton and Wagoner delivered two more collaborative albums in 1974 and 1975 – Porter ’n’ Dolly and Say Forever You’ll Be Mine.
Parton herself ended up in tears when she had to make a tough decision about I Will Always Love You.
Not long after the release of the Jolene album, Parton was approached by Colonel Tom Parker, the manger of Elvis Presley. Parker told her that Elvis was interested in recording I Will Always Love You, but there was a catch. When Elvis recorded a song he would claim part – usually one half – of the publishing rights.
In a 2021 interview with W Magazine, Parton recalled her conversation with Parker: “I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t give you the publishing.’ I wanted to hear Elvis sing it, and it broke my heart — I cried all night. But I had to keep that copyright in my pocket. You have to take care of your business!”
Whitney Houston’s version of I Will Always Love You – featured in the soundtrack for the 1992 film The Bodyguard – was a No 1 hit all around the world and spent 14 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
Speaking to CBS News in 2012, Parton said of Houston’s version: “She just took it worldwide and made it the most special song in the whole world for a long period of time.”
But Parton was taken by surprise when she heard Houston’s version for the first time. She knew that the song was being used in The Bodyguard but had no idea which singer had recorded it.
In her interview with The Bobby Bones Show, Parton recalled how she was driving when she first heard Houston’s version on the radio, and was initially confused by the intro in this new arrangement.
“I just heard Whitney singing the acapella part,” Parton said. “I thought, ‘Well, that’s weird.’ You know, something caught my attention. It was only when she went into the chorus of ‘I will always love you’ that I realised what I was listening to.”
She continued: “It was so overwhelming I almost wrecked. Just the greatness and the bigness and the fact that that was my song, it was just so out of nowhere. And I have to honestly say that it was one of the biggest thrills and one of the most overwhelming feelings I’ve ever had about anything in my life.”
In the wake of Dolly Parton’s death on 25 August, Priscilla Presley, Elvis’s former wife, paid tribute in an emotional statement in which she described her own attachment to I Will Always Love You.
“Dolly brought so much joy, kindness and beautiful music into the world,” she stated. “I will always remember our conversations, and especially the connection we shared through a song that holds such a personal place in my heart – I Will Always Love You.
“After Elvis and I left the courthouse following our divorce, he sang that song to me as we walked down the steps together. Years later, I shared that memory with Dolly.”
