Dolly Parton’s favourite Dolly Parton song: “It’s OK to be different”
Songwriting has given Dolly Parton the keys to a life that she could only have dreamed of living when she was growing up in relative poverty in Tennessee.
However, despite having a net worth of hundreds of millions, being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and even having her own theme park, Dollywood, Parton has never forgotten her roots. Ultimately, it was those experiences that turned her into a songwriting great, whose work is now woven into the fabric of American culture.
While Parton is responsible for birthing timeless hits like ‘9 to 5’ and ‘Jolene’, which are among the most recognisable and widely known in the history of song, they now belong to the general public rather than her. Instead, her favourite song is for personal, sentimental reasons, not how many zeroes they have given her bank account.
As the fourth of 12 children, money was tight, but she was compensated by love. In addition to her songwriting, her background has also shaped her philanthropy. Her father, Lee Parton, was unable to read or write, which inspired her to found the Imagination Library in 1995 and ensure that children across the world don’t face the same struggles.
As a child, Parton began performing at an early age and made a name for herself in the local area. However, due to her family’s finances, Parton missed out on many luxuries during these early years, but it did give her the foundation to write ‘Coat of Many Colours’.
The story behind the track traces back to when Parton’s family couldn’t afford to buy her a coat. Instead, her mother took it upon herself to make a patchwork coat for her daughter. At the time, Dolly was embarrassed by the item of clothing and was ridiculed by her classmates for wearing the garment, inspiring her to later write ‘Coat of Many Colors’.
Parton sings on the track: “My coat of many colours, That my momma made for me, Made only from rags, But I wore it so proudly, Although we had no money, I was rich as I could be.”
While, at the time, she was hugely disheartened to not have the same coat as her peers at school, the same item of clothing later became a symbol of her mother’s love.
Parton wrote of the song in her 2020 autobiography, Songteller: “At the time, I thought, ‘Why is this happening?’ Now I know it was so I could write that song. It really is true that ‘God works in strange and mysterious ways His wonders to perform.’ You never know when you’re going through things what is actually going to turn out to be a blessing. So it’s worth the suffering.”
Due to the personal aspect of the lyrics, ‘Coat of Many Colors’ sits in a league of its own in the eyes of Parton, who confessed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: “Well, my very favourite song – from a very personal level – is the ‘Coat of Many Colors’. It’s kinda a little signature song of mine.”
Parton elaborated, “It’s about my mom, it’s about family. It’s about acceptance – tolerance. And even speaks to bullying – how the kids made fun of me in school. They even teach out of it in some of the grammar schools in Tennessee. They use that little song [to say] it’s OK to be different. And we should love and accept one another.”
‘Coat of Many Colors’ is more than just a song to Parton; it’s a reminder of where she’s come from and the people who made her into who she is today. While it exists on an autobiographical level, it also contains a valuable lesson about the importance of not judging people for material reasons, which applies to everyone.
