The 1980 song Dolly Parton is the most proud of: “I like that one”
Dolly Parton didn’t need to be walking around like God’s gift to songwriters every single time she made a record.
Half of her greatest tunes were about the simple pleasures in life, and even if they took on a life of their own outside of the country sphere, Parton was only too happy to have a bunch of people relating to tunes like ‘Jolene’ whenever she came out with them back in the day. But for someone who has been through multiple generations of show business, Parton’s greatest strength has always been about pushing herself forward and finding that next perfect line whenever she works on a new tune.
But capturing that lightning in a bottle is a lot harder than it looks, and it doesn’t exactly look easy. Some of the biggest pieces of her back catalogue have been about her trying to make the single best song that she can in the moment, but the reason why millions of people relate to her is that a lot of her songs are standalone stories. Not everyone needs to know the experience of ‘Coat of Many Colours’, but Parton packed more pathos into that song than most modern feature films do.
And that also applies to the moments where she has made her turn on the big screen. Acting alongside an icon like Burt Reynolds was never going to be easy, but hearing Parton sing ‘I Will Always Love You’ onscreen is still one of the greatest moments of her career. She may have written the song for Porter Wagoner years before, but hearing her address Reynolds’s character in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a perfect example of her writing the perfect line for a soundtrack she didn’t even know she’d make.
There are plenty more songs that could have been adapted to the big screen, like ‘Joshua’, but working on ‘9 to 5’ is still the gift that keeps on giving for Parton. This kind of slice-of-life movie needed the kind of charisma that Parton had, and while she certainly had moments where she could write a catchy tune, she knew she was in the right place at the right time when she penned this ode to the working world.
Every single songwriter has that magic moment where everything’s working right, but Parton felt that ‘9 to 5’ was the one song that she took the most pride in writing, saying, “One that I remember the very moment I wrote when I was working on ‘9 to 5,’ was ‘Pour myself a cup of ambition.’ I went, ‘Yeah that’s so good.’ That has really followed me through the years. Sometimes when those lines come, you just think, ‘Oh my goodness that is so good. I’m so proud of myself. And then of course, many things spiritual based, I always look up and say, ‘Hey, thank you, Lord. I like that one.’”
But the reason why the song works so well is how malleable it is as well. Parton’s sweet voice singing this song works like a charm whenever she sings it, but when you look at the lyrics on the surface, any singer could do a million different things with it. It could have been sung as a pop ballad like this, but the greatest country singers of all time could have probably made something a lot more rootsy with it as well.
If anything, this song was screaming to be redone by some of the biggest country stars out at the time. Parton is forever going to be one of the greatest people to sing this song, but when you listen to the way that country was moving back in the day, George Jones could have done the song justice, Kris Kristofferson could have brought his trademark grit to the tune, and even if you wanted an updated spin, just think of the kind of arrangement that Garth Brooks or The Chicks could have brought to this song.
‘9 to 5’ is a song that could be taken in a million different ways, but the reason why Parton’s work so well is that you can still feel how excited she is whenever she sings that song. Not many artists get that kind of magical moment when they’re writing, and if you’re the one who manages to catch it, that’s something that you’re going to want to hold onto for as long as you can.
