“It’s not fair”: The song Dolly Parton wishes she could have written and the protégé that did
Dolly Parton has a host of mega-hits to her name beyond the mainstream success of ‘9 to 5’.
Her lyrics are often nostalgic, romantic and reflective, brought to life by that sweet soprano voice, and looking back, there isn’t much she can be jealous of. When it comes to showing the industry how it’s done, she really is the blueprint: Parton has 44 career Top 40 country albums and 25 number-one singles, both records for a female artist.
Her acrylic-wearing guitar-plucking image extends beyond her own performances; she’s an incredible songwriter beyond the Dolly namesake, and most notably, she has written over 3,000 songs, including the soaring, painful ‘I Will Always Love You’, which quickly became a career-defining global hit for Whitney Houston, all of that without using AI, mind you. Some of these other musicians need to learn a thing or two from her.
Still, it’s hard to believe in Dolly’s case that we are all human, plagued by the sticky, unfortunate hands of jealousy. As a writer, it’s a certain inevitability that walking into a bookstore and glancing at the best-selling shelf might be a panic-inducing affair, raising a twinge of, ‘Why isn’t my name up there?’ or ‘It should have been me’. I might walk out empty-handed, quietly fuming over my own self-induced career paranoia, but for Dolly, things are even trickier.
The star has admitted that there’s one song in particular she wishes she could put her name to, despite the thousands already being loved and enjoyed across the entire world. But, unlike my own anxiety-inducing foray on the high street, the call of jealousy comes from inside the house. Famously, Parton is godmother to Miley Cyrus, the ex-Hannah Montana star behind pop’s biggest bangers, and also its greatest controversy. In 2013, Cyrus aggressively leaned into hedonism with high-profile, scandalous performances that attempted to shake off her Disney girl image with firm absolutism.
Almost a decade on, the now-33-year-old reflected on the media reaction to her newfound salaciousness with a moving piano ballad that separates her own sense of self, finally, from the overriding and disapproving criticism of the media. ‘Used to be Young’ explains the unintended consequences of her explosive, image-defying era: “Turns out open bars lead to broken hearts / And goin’ way too far,” the star admits in arguably her most personal song to date.
As a result, the track boasts a wisdom beyond Cyrus’ years, one that Parton was both jealous of and resistant to; her goddaughter needn’t apologise in such a way, Parton thought. When the song was released, she was barely 30. There’s no “used to” about the matter, as Cyrus was still young and should be owning that reality, whatever way it might happen to manifest.
It was a candid conversation she took directly to the source, and shared with the media in a 2024 interview, where the ‘Flowers’ singer recalled the conversation she had with Parton: “[Dolly] goes, ‘I don’t know if I like that new ‘Used to Be Young’ song because it’s not fair that you’re singing about not being young when you’re young and beautiful. And here I am, I’m like 80, and I’m like, That should have been my song!’”
The accompanying music video exacerbates the reflective, redemptive tone of the lyrics with an up-close-and-personal shot of the ex-Disney star singing directly to the camera, her eyes welling up with tears that almost reflect the camera’s eye to the viewer. They break the surface and fall as she admits, “You say I used to be wild, I say I used to be fun”, and here’s where Parton is wrong: she might be getting on in years, but she’s still sure as hell fun as ever.
