Dolly Parton Performed ‘Wrecking Ball’ With Miley Cyrus and Helped Change the Emotion of the Song
On Dec. 31, 2022, Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton co-hosted the holiday special Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party on NBC. The event included appearances and performances by multiple celebrities including Fletcher, Paris Hilton, and Sia. During Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party, Parton and Cyrus performed Cyrus’ song “Wrecking Ball” together.
Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus performed ‘Wrecking Ball’
On Dec. 31, 2022, “Wrecking Ball” became a duet. During Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party, Cyrus and Parton stood on stage together to perform the song.
The two singers took turns with the song’s verses while opting to sing the chorus together. As they performed, audience members were shown singing along.
While the song is generally considered a heartbreak anthem, Cyrus and Parton performing it gave it a different feel.
Toward the end of the performance, Parton sang “Don’t you ever say I just walked away/ I will always love you.”
After a brief pause, Parton then launched into her song “I Will Always Love You,” belting out, “And I, I will always love you, ooh, I/ Will always love you.”
Fans loved the mashup of ‘Wrecking Ball’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’
After Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party, fans shared their opinion about the holiday special on social media. One of the highlights of the night was Parton and Cyrus’ mashup of “Wrecking Ball” and “I Will Always Love You.”
One fan wrote on Reddit, “Wrecking Ball worked so well for Dolly too. Like the pre chorus really could have been something she wrote??”
“This performance had me gagged and almost had me in tears,” another fan wrote on Reddit.
A Reddit user wrote, “It is always crazy to see how well the two of them play off of each other.”
“The transition into I Will Always Love You?!? That was f***ing insane!! One of Miley’s best performances. She is the performer of our generation,” a fan wrote on Reddit.
Miley Cyrus has shared she has mixed feelings about ‘Wrecking Ball’
Cyrus originally released “Wrecking Ball” in 2013. The single marked a transformation for Cyrus in terms of her image in pop culture. Over the years, the singer has admitted she has mixed feelings about the song.
“Lyrically, I’m less impressed with that song right now,” Cyrus told NME in 2017 according to Entertainment Tonight. “I feel like it doesn’t reflect who I am now, but that’s fine because it’s not supposed to.”
She continued, “I should be grateful every f***ing day for that song, and I am… I think people look at things that they’ve done and there is this sense of shame, or ‘I wish I wouldn’t have done that’ — not because I’m naked, by the way. It’s because I feel like I’m in a deeper songwriting place.”
In 2021, Cyrus cried while performing “Wrecking Ball” during her Super Bowl Pregame Show performance. During the performance, she told the audience “It never gets easier.”
Despite Cyrus’ conflicting feelings about “Wrecking Ball” over the years, performing it with Parton seemed to take some of the raw heartbreak away from the song’s meaning.
