Dolly Parton Said People Would Be ‘Amazed’ by Which of Her Lyrics Show Her True Self
Dolly Parton has been a prolific writer all her life, able to crank out lyrics to as many as 20 songs in one day. She finds the process of writing to be very therapeutic and feels deeply as she works on songs. While some of what she writes about is pure fiction, she also draws inspiration from her life and experiences. Parton said people would be shocked to hear which of her lyrics are pulled directly from her real life.
Dolly Parton said she shows her real self in her lyrics
Parton has been writing songs since she was a child. She takes time every day to write something, no matter where she is. Everyone in Parton’s life knows how important writing is to her.
“People don’t realize how serious a songwriter she is and how much writing means to her,” her makeup artist Jo Coulter said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “It’s her way of expressing a life and she has to have it. She really needs it.”
Parton pours herself into her songs. When asked if her lyrics show “the way she really is and thinks,” Parton gave a “mysterious smile.”
“A big part of ’em are, yeah,” she said. “You’d be amazed at the ones that are.”
Dolly Parton said she prefers to write lyrics than to sing them
Parton loves to sing as well, but the joy she gets out of it doesn’t compare to how she feels about writing. She said she would rather have people remember her as a writer than a singer.
“I feel like anybody can sing, but not everybody can write,” she said. “My songs tell how I feel. I get more out of writing than singing. My writing is personal to me. It’s my self-expression. It’s me. I want to be remembered as a good songwriter and stylist and as a person who added something to this world. If I had to choose, I guess a lot of people can sing better than me. I’d choose being remembered as a songwriter, because my writing is something I take great pride in. Like I say, that’s totally me.”
She sees songwriting as therapy
Part of the reason some of Parton’s songs are so personal is because she views writing as a therapeutic practice. She said that for her, writing is “better than a psychiatrist, cause I’m able to put the hurtin’ things into my songs and then they don’t hurt me anymore. I get the world to share it.’’
She explained that when she feels sad, she can make the emotions productive by writing.
“That’s when the songwriting becomes therapy,” she wrote in her book Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. “I never went to a therapist, because songwriting heals me. With my little guitar, my little head for writing songs, and my gift for rhyming, I can lift myself up.”
