SYSK Tribute: Why does everyone love Dolly Parton?

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And, you know, I think that title, Josh came up with that title, and it really hits it on the head. She was a beloved person that seems to have crossed different musical genres of music, of course, and, you know, political boundaries. And she was just one of those people that kind of, everyone seemed to be united in agreement that Dolly Parton is and was an amazing human being. That's the kind of thing we detail in this episode. And we try to get to the heart of why she's so beloved. And I think for me, Dolly was just someone who seemed like her guiding principles were, you know, kindness and love and joy. And that seems to be what led her to do just about everything in her career and every decision she made and people who she worked with and, you know, nonprofits she decided to get involved with and certainly her philanthropic efforts and everything that she gave to the world, it seems like she led with her heart first. And that's just kind of a rare trait these days. So Dolly, certainly a rare breed and just an amazing woman, somebody who I think we can all agree should be revered and looked up to. And the world is a little dimmer today without her light shining. So here we are today, the day after she passed, releasing this special episode, hoping everyone can give it a listen as we pay tribute to the great Dolly Parton with our episode from 2023, "Why Does Everyone Love Dolly Parton?" - Welcome to "Stuff You Should Know," a production of iHeartRadio. - Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And today we're gonna make some joyful noise together here on "Stuff You Should Know." - That's right. I just poured myself a cup of ambition. - Mm-hmm. - Uh-huh. I had a few of those this morning. - Uh, Livia helped us with this one and, you know, we've remarked about how Livia is getting great at titling the articles, even though she doesn't even have to. - Right. - She does it because she's creative and talented. And her title for this is, "Why Does Everyone Love Dolly Parton?" And we're gonna explain that. But I think the easiest thing to say is, since the 1970s, this is a woman who was, basically just put goodness into the world at every turn. - Yeah, for sure. I was reading an interview with her in Rolling Stone from 1980, like nine to five had just come out. And it, you might as well have told me it was from 2023. - Yeah. - She just, she's been the same way this whole time. - That's great. - Like she, she doesn't like get into any political stuff. She said, "I'm not political. I won't talk about politics." She doesn't, she leaves hot button issues alone, but if it means something to her, it's really meaningful. She'll, she'll come out on, you know, in favor of it, endorsing it, but she doesn't put anything down. She might support something, but she's not gonna put anything down publicly. - Yeah. So the other kind of funny thing about this one from Livia is she always includes her sources and she may have broken her own source record. - Yeah, there's a lot. - Oh boy, there were probably a hundred sources, but we did wanna mention one in particular because I listened to this from Jad Abumrad, Jad Abumrad of Radiolab fame like four years ago, put out the wonderful series, Dolly Parton's America. - Yeah. - And Livia binged it and I listened to it back then. And back then I was like, oh man, I wanna do an episode on Dolly Parton, but it's like Jad did it. Like he covered it so well, like what's the point kind of thing. - Right. - But now four years on, I was like, well, we can give it the stuff you should know treatment, which is to say not as, not as deep a dive, but it's a great series if you want to learn more. about Dolly Parton, then check out Dolly Parton's America. - Very nice. And then just to button up Chuck, we were trying to answer that question. Why does everybody love Dolly? I came up with another hypothesis too. - Okay. - And it's that, you know, when, when somebody is like, they can be anything anybody wants them to be like, they're interpretable from all different angles. So everybody just assumes they're like them. Dolly is not like that. She is her own person who can't be pigeonholed into one box or another, right? But she's likable from all sides. - Yeah. Like find someone that's going to talk smack about Dolly Parton. And then you and I are going to have a discussion in the parking lot with that guy. - It's a sad state of affairs though, dude, because there's think pieces all over the internet about how it's just amazing that everybody doesn't hate Dolly Parton. And it's like, good God, like, this is what we've come to. Like everybody hates everybody casually. So I mean, how has she escaped it so long? And it's just like such a sad state of affairs that that's normalized by even writing pieces like that, but they're out there for sure. But the upshot of it is people are amazed that people don't hate Dolly Parton and it's true. People don't hate Dolly Parton. - Yeah. And she's, she's someone that is so, I think, kind of universally beloved and internationally beloved that as you'll see later in this episode, she's been studied by anthropologists and sociologists. - Yeah. - Which is pretty amazing. And so let's, let's start at the beginning, shall we? - Wait, hold on one more thing. - Yeah. - More praise. - The other thing about her I think that's so amazing and so remarkable is that she, this is the reason why everybody's just so fascinated with her right now. She's maybe the one person who is straddling both sides of the political and social divide as wide as it is in the United States today and is not, is not like hanging on by her fingernails. She's like, I got a foot here and I'm not lying about it. Got a foot here, I'm not lying about that either. I'm not, I'm not trying to fool either side. This is, this is what I'm into. And, and, you know, I like both of you basically. - It's almost like being a genuine human who 100% stays true to who they are is something we should all aspire to. - Sure. But it also shows, she shows that that's such a rarity in this world that, that you can be globally beloved by just doing that. And also making like a ton of really great music too. - Well, yeah, I mean, come on. We're going to talk about all this stuff. But can we go back to the beginning now? - Yeah, yeah, sorry. - Okay. Hey, never apologize about singing the praises of Dolly Parton. - That's a great rule of thumb. - It's a stuff you should know motto. And I just can't wait till we get to the Dollywood stuff because you, you've been, and I have not. All right, so she was born, Dolly, Rebecca Parton in 1946, in January 19th of 1946 in rural Tennessee. How do you pronounce that? Is it Sevier County? - I think it's Sevier. - Oh, it's just Sevier. - I'm almost positive it's Sevier. - Okay, S-E-V-I-E-R. And see, immediately, this is, I'm sure Jad's episode pronounced it perfectly right off the bat. I don't remember. - Yeah, he just threw his face into his palm like these guys. - But she was born to, to a big family of 12. kids. And it's kind of fun to look up photos of Dolly and all her siblings, because, you know, a few of her sisters look a lot like her. All her brothers look like, you know, they should be like shooting pool down at the pool hall. You know, all very just sort of genuine article, Smoky Mountain, Tennessee, Foothills people. Yeah, for sure. And there were 12 of them, did you say? 12 sibs, including her. And she was the fourth. Yeah, the fourth of 12. And all 14 people in her family lived in a two room cabin. And I've seen a replica of this cabin. And it is no joke, a two room cabin and 14 people lived in it in the Smoky Mountains. You mean two bedrooms with an office, right? I mean, two rooms, my friend, with the outhouse, no running water, no electricity. Like she grew up as as. As Smoky Mountain, as a Smoky Mountain person can grow up like even people in other parts of Tennessee are like, wow. Yeah. But she said she had a great childhood running around just being outside. And because she was the fourth of 12, she wasn't particularly like paid attention to. So she could just kind of go off and do her own thing. Yeah, I get the idea that they were semi feral sort of mountain kids. Her granddad was a Pentecostal minister, very fiery and brimstoney. And she still. You know, mentions God a lot. I get the sense that she's a little less overtly religious, but spirituality is still very much a mainstay in her life. Yeah, I think it's more of a personal relationship between her and God. Yeah, which is not supposed to be. So she really lucked out because she had an uncle named Bill Owens, who was a musician, a songwriter who noticed that she wanted to get into music from a very young age and was maybe the only person in her. Yeah, she was the only person in her entire life or her early life that that noticed and then nurtured it. And she later said when he died a few years back at his funeral, like she wouldn't be here today if it wasn't him, like she owed him everything because he nurtured it in her. He encouraged her. He supported her when she got rejected and he helped her break into the business. So Bill Owens was a huge influence in her life. But he noticed, like I said, from a very early age, I think she wrote her first song when she was five. Yeah. Little Tiny Tassel Top. About her homemade corn husk doll. And she would pretend, you know, she would get a tobacco stick in a tin can and act like it was her microphone and mic stand. And she would sing for the chickens in her yard and had obviously a real talent from the beginning. If you listen to her very first recording, Puppy Love from 1959, it sounds like, you know, 13 year old Dolly Parton. You know, you can hear Dolly in that young voice. And like I said, she was 13. And that was the same year that she made her very first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry, introduced by none other than Johnny Cash. Yeah. Who was her first big crush. So it was even more amazing for her. Unbelievable. Her family didn't get to see it, though, because Dolly Parton was on TV before her family had a TV at home. Yeah. Which is pretty cool. Was it on TV back then? I believe there was a TV appearance. Yes. Okay. And if it was, if that one wasn't, first, whenever it was, she was on TV first. Her family still didn't have a TV back then. Gotcha. So thanks to Uncle Billy taking her around and banging on doors, she ended up making her debut on Mercury Records in 1962, which is nothing to sneeze at. But I get the impression that it wasn't like her, it wasn't like, okay, this is a serious recording contract. It's like, okay, let's test this girl out. Back then, they called any woman in country music a girl. Right. So she was a bit of a novelty, not just because of her age, but because she was a woman as well. But she had her sights set on becoming a country music star. And so the day after she graduated high school, the day after she graduated high school, she got on a bus for Nashville and moved there. Yeah. Amazing. 1964. And very soon after she moved there, she met a man that would become her husband and a mainstay in her life to this day. Who is remarkably hard to find stuff about. His name is Carl Dean. They met very famously at a laundromat when she was 18 and he was 21. Married a couple of years later. And I think a lot of people that don't know a lot about Dolly Parton think she might be single or something because she never had kids. But she's been married to Carl Dean since 1966. And he just, he doesn't want to be in the limelight. He never did. He's her biggest fan and supporter, she's always said, you know, off the stage. But he just doesn't want any part of the limelight. And it's hard to even find a lot of pictures of this guy. There's a handful out there. But he started an asphalt laying business in the late 70s, still runs that business today. Oh, really? Just amazing. And yeah, I read an article from a couple of years ago. She was like, you know, Carl and I, we like to run errands. She said, we go to the 24 hour stores, you know, in the middle of the night, like Walmart and places. And she said, and there are fewer people there to come up to. And she said, and I don't mind it. I love people. She said, I just don't want it to get in the way of our shopping. Right. And, you know, Carl's not wild about it. So they just live a very simple kind of pure life together, I think, outside the limelight. Yeah, I've read an interview with her somewhere. And she said that, in her opinion, if she's out in public, that time belongs to her fans. So she's not, she doesn't have a problem with people coming up to her, asking for autographs. She knows that she's out in public. And that's a risk that she runs, right? Sure. But her leisure time, her time away is like secluded off with Carl, just the two of them, usually. Maybe she has a very close best friend. I can't remember her name. They go everywhere together. So she's almost like a stand in for Carl when Dolly's traveling around. Yeah. And she's always been very, her persona is very flirty. And she's always sort of flirted around with, in fact, no friends that have worked on like commercial shoots with her. And they were like, man, she's the biggest flirt you would ever know. And that's just her personality. And she said that Carl understands that. And that's just how she sort of has fun and relates to people. And it's always very innocent. And I just think it's kind of, kind of cute and fun. Yeah, for sure. I want her to flirt with me, you know, I think is what I'm saying. This, this episode might be your big break, Chuck. Yeah. So would you just like turn bright red and like dig your, the toe of your foot into the dirt? I kind of am a little bright red. I thought it was the stuff you should know sign in here, casting a red beam on my face. No, it's you thinking about being flirted with by Dolly Parton. I know. Well, dude, I grew up as you did, but I'm a little bit older. Like the heyday of early Dolly was when I was a kid. And of course, my dad was in love with her. And, you know, it was just, she was one of the biggest stars in the world. And my parents were kind of into country music. So she was just sort of prevalent in our household somehow. Yeah. My introduction to her was through nine to five and my mom, that, that whole message and the idea behind it was right up my mom's alley. So she would watch it clasped together at the side of her face, like just an adoration of everybody, including Dolly Parton too. I think, um, my family was never really into country music. So I think that that was like a big introduction and probably a win over for my family was nine to five. Uh, all right. Well, we'll talk about nine to five and crossover success more. It's a good setup, but how about we take a break? Yes. And we'll be right back with more Dolly Parton. Hey, Chuck, let's say you want to settle one of life's most important questions. What was the greatest era of skateboarding? Well, all you have to do is go to YouTube premium because YouTube premium is the perfect place to investigate. Like let's start by searching great skateboard videos and see where it takes us. Yeah. Well, you know, of course the mid 80s, to mid 90s would probably be the greatest era of skateboarding. Like I know that's our era, but even skate historians say so. Yeah. Well, the eighties are when Mike McGill invented the Mick twist. Check this out. 720 degrees midair on a half pipe. Oh my God. Amazing. How does someone even do that? I don't know, man. It's just crazy. And that's where it came from. The mid eighties, thanks to bones brigade member, Mike McGill. Plus also the eighties where the era of skateboarding came from. So I think that's where it came from. So that's where it came from. It's pretty amazing. I could watch skate videos all day, Chuck. Yeah, me too. And with YouTube premium, exploring a topic like this is even more seamless because it has ad free viewing, which means we can watch classic skate clips uninterrupted and we can really dig into that debate about what the greatest era of skating is. Yeah. And with background play, it lets us keep listening with our screen locked, which is great if we're doing something else, but you still want to hear the video content and get this with offline downloads. We can save videos ahead of time and watch them anywhere, even without wifi. So back to that debate. If you go to the search bar of YouTube premium and search for golden era of skateboarding, you can see that there's a bunch of different videos that come up and they're from a bunch of different eras. There's like people skating in old pools in the seventies. There's of course the eighties, which were amazing to us, but there's still tons of people skating today that are amazing. Like this guy, Antoine Dixon. He was still doing amazing stuff this year in 2026. Check out this little video of him. He's amazing. And he's skating right now. Yeah, you know, so after reviewing the evidence, we may finally have our answer. Or maybe we've just uncovered more skateboarding debates we need to settle. But either way, that's the beauty of YouTube Premium. It's a more supercharged, enhanced way to enjoy everything you already love about YouTube. So, if you like YouTube, you'll love Premium. We can eradicate food deserts with this technology. Hey, everybody, it's Chuck from Stuff You Should Know, and that was Jaleah Hemmings. She and her husband created Nourish and Bloom Market, a fully autonomous grocery store. You can scan a QR code to enter, pick up what you need, and just walk out. Or, as Jaleah puts it, Tap, grab, and go 24-7. We started to get flooded with folks saying, hey, I need you in my city. It became their mission to develop a store that could open within three months, even without any infrastructure. And just when we were like, how are we going to accomplish this goal? We won the AT&T Small Business Contest Grant. That $50,000 got us over. Over the finish line, where we built the first AI-powered grocery shipping container in the country. For Jaleah, it's about building a legacy to show the world that you can solve any problem when you work together. Having the support of AT&T, the city of Atlanta, is huge. Look at how many people we've been able to help. Connecting changes everything. AT&T. Your home is always a work in progress, isn't it? There's always something that needs updating. And even if you somehow finished every room, eventually, you'd start all over again. That's right. And that's why Wayfair is so amazing, because you'll find furniture and decor that's built to last and looks great, too. Plus, when you shop Wayfair Verified, every item has been hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection, so you can feel confident in what you're buying. And the best part? There are amazing options for every budget. But don't just take our word for it. Wayfair has more than 20 million verified five-star reviews from real shoppers. Yeah, 20 million. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to Wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair. Every style, every home. Wayfair. Okay, so we're talking about Dolly becoming a star. Like, she's had a couple of record contracts, nothing serious, though. But then in 1965, she signed with Monument Records. That was her first big record contract I read. But they wanted her to be a pop singer, which is kind of ironic, because she actually would kind of become a pop singer later on in her career. But at first, she was like, no way. Like, have you seen my house? And do you know how many people are in my family? I'm not a pop singer. I'm a country singer, right? So she persisted and hung in there. And they ended up, like, folding and giving in. And she went on to become a full-fledged country singer. Yeah, in 1967, her first record, Hello, I'm Dolly, which is just great how they used to do records like that and title them like that when you, like, introduce her to the world. But, you know, as would become a thing, like, in her career, most of the songs that she's well-known for, most of the songs she's recorded, she's done, you know, plenty of covers, because everyone does that, especially in country music. But she is most well-known as a songwriter. And we'll get into that more in a little bit. But she wrote two. Now, Libby has a number 24, but I saw that they were both top 20 in the country charts. Dumb Blonde, which is written by a guy named Curly Putman. Great name. Yeah. Something Fishy, written by Dolly. And I think the album itself was a top 20 hit. Her debut right off, you know, in the country charts. Yeah. Right off out of the gate. Yes. I was looking up Something Fishy, and it's about a woman who's become convinced that her husband's fishing trips aren't actually fishing trips and that he's running around on her. So one of the lines is, I guess some largemouth bass left that lipstick on your shirt. I don't think you're a fisherman, honey. I think you're a flirt. That's like perfect debut Dolly. Like at what age? Like 19, I think is how old she is. Yeah, that's pretty great. And Porter Wagoner is someone that we talked about on our Grand Ole Opry show. And he had the Porter Wagoner show. He hires young Dolly to replace his other young woman sidekick singer. And basically, she elevated the show to the point where it was a number one, the number one syndicated show in the country radio show. Right. And they started doing duets together and albums together, including their first one, Just Between You and Me, in 1968. Yeah, and they started touring a lot, too. And she learned a tremendous amount about touring, performing live, the music business. Everything she needed to learn early on came from touring with Porter Wagoner. But he was also really well aware that he had like a real cash register on his hands. Yeah. And he kept her under his thumb. Yeah. And he kept her under his thumb as much as he could, both emotionally blackmailing her, I get the impression, but also locking her into just really exploitive contracts because she might not have known what she was signing. She probably did and just figured like, OK, at least it's going to help me get to where I'm going. That's the likelier explanation, if you ask me. But he was definitely in charge for the first many years of her serious career. Yeah, but because she's Dolly Parton and so beloved, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So when they eventually broke up their relationship, I think it was kind of rough. And she ended up writing a song, I Will Always Love You, about that relationship. And ultimately, they worked it out and she reconciled and was at his deathbed with his family. And it was kind of one of those no hard feelings kind of situations. Oh, really? I read that his last dying words were, I'll never forgive you. That's what I'm going to say on my deathbed. No. They forgave each other. I'm just going to like wave my finger around the room to everybody. I'm just going to be standing there. And we're all going to be like, is he talking about me? Exactly. You guys can spend the rest of your lives figuring it out. And Yumi will just look at me and say, he's talking about you. Totally. So they, while they were a duet, she also- Oh, wait, wait, Chuck. Wait, wait. Hold on. One more thing. You brought up I Will Always Love You, which everybody knows. One of her most famous songs. Arguably her other most famous song, Jolene. Oh, great song. She apparently wrote those songs. She wrote those songs on the same day, start to finish. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. I mean, she now says like, you know, if it wasn't the same day, it was within a couple of days of each other. But like either way, it's remarkable. Yeah. And it's possible it was the same day. She just doesn't remember. Yeah. But that really like kind of goes to show what kind of, she was drinking cups of Ambition left and right apparently. Right. Because not only is that story potentially true, she also put out 24. Five albums. Yeah. Both duets with Porter Wagner and then some solo albums in the five-year period between 1968 and 1973. Yeah. I mean, that's remarkable. She started, and that's kind of where I was headed anyway. She kind of started recording her own solo stuff as she was, you know, it's kind of obvious. She just had, she was too prolific of a songwriter. I mean, she supposedly, her quote is that she's written more than 3,000 songs and three of them are good. She's also humble, another reason people love Dolly Parton, but she, she had too much to say early on. And so started making solo records while she was still with Wagner. And it was in that, that time period, I think in the early seventies is when, you know, those iconic songs, Jolene and I Will Always Love You came out. Right. But still under the tutelage of Porter Wagner, right? Yeah. I mean, those are solo albums and I think I Will Always Love You was about them splitting apart. So it was sort of right there. It definitely was. And I heard a story years back that he said, okay, I'll let you out of your contract if you let me produce this amazing song. Oh, that song? Yeah. I Will Always Love You, right? And then apparently he turned around and sued her anyway for breach of contract. But she, she got out of it. She got out of this, this, this terrible contract, this exploitive contract. She got out from under a very domineering mentor. And this is a really big time of transition for her. Because not only did she get away from Porter Wagner, which was enormous because in, in a sense, she was like a pinball that had just been plunged when she was released from, from Porter Wagner, just looking for like the, the next bumper to just shoot her off in another direction. That's my analogy, buddy. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened. But she also had to break up with her family band. Like they were her original backing band. And she had to be like, I got to get better musicians. You guys. And she made some really hard decisions, but they, they ended up paying off. And from what I understand, there were no lasting hard feelings from it. She hosted a TV show for one season, just like us. It was called Dolly. You know, back then they had all those great variety shows. This was 76 into 77. And then a very important man comes into her life by the name of Sandy Gallen, who was a. Uber manager Got the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, would later manage Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand and Cher. And Sandy Gallen was a pretty instrumental person for a couple of reasons. One is kind of encouraging the crossover success. Yeah. Like he booked her at the bottom line in the Greenwich Village who, you know, everyone from Springsteen to Lou Reed were playing there. Like Andy Warhol came and watched her show. There's an awesome picture of them sitting together. Yeah, talk about crossover. Yeah, exactly. And she was nervous. I saw that she was nervous on the way to being scared. I'm sure. Yeah. He had her tour Europe, exposed her internationally. He took her to Studio 54, which is probably where she also hung out with Andy Warhol. But the other big reason is that Sandy Gallen was gay. He died like five years ago. And this was a very instrumental relationship. And I get the impression, you know, Dolly is very flippant. She's very famous for being sort of an icon in the LGTBQ community. Yeah, from very early on. Yeah. And it seems like this is kind of where it all started was having this relationship with Sandy and, you know, just the gay community wrapping their arms around her early on. Not necessarily because, you know, she had a gay manager, but, you know, I don't think it hurt. Right. And the New York Times wrote that she got a warm welcome in San Francisco from transgender fans. And, quote, other exotic urban cult audiences. Well, Dolly's always said, you know, she's one of those love is love types. And, you know, it's just like it's the way to live life. Like she doesn't judge people and she never has. And she's always just embraced like whatever community wants to love her music. Like, why would she? I never get it when people like intentionally sort of turn audiences off. Right. You know? Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. But also, like, it's that's so true. And it's so prevalent when when you read about her, watch interviews with her, just listen to her talk. You're almost like, what's your angle, Dolly? Right. What are you really up to here? Her big crossover hit was Here You Come Again, which was considered a pop song. I mean, I've always kind of thought it was a country song, I guess. Because her voice is in it. And she insisted on steel guitar. So it still had a little country tinge to it. But it's like a perfect song. It's a perfect crossover. Like, it's exactly perfectly balanced. Like, there couldn't have been a better song to transition from full on country singer to country pop singer. Yeah. And it went number one on the country chart, number three on the pop charts. Album went platinum. And this is, you know, the late 70s when she really, really, really blew it. Yeah, that was that. She just took off like a rocket from there. One of the things that she did very wisely in the late 70s, early 80s, right around this time, was just hop on the TV circuit. She's been on at least a few hundred TV appearances. But a lot of them took place in the 70s and 80s when she was just making herself known, making herself a household name. And none of this was by accident. Like, she's wanted to be a mega. She's wanted to be a star since she was a kid. And this was part of, she apparently makes a lot of lists. And they turn out to kind of be five-year plans. And I'm sure getting on the talk show circuit was part of one of those lists. And that explains why, as a kid growing up in the 70s, I saw a lot of Dolly Parton. Exactly. She was everywhere. Dolly wanted you to see a lot of Dolly Parton. In the 80s is when she continued some of her collaborations with other artists. Very famous. Famously with Kenny Rogers with Islands in the Stream. Huge, massive hit. Haven't heard it. And then 1987, my favorite collaboration at least came out. And maybe my favorite Dolly stuff, period. Oh, yeah? Was the album Trio, yeah, that she recorded with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. Just three of the best voices in the history of music coming together to sing together. They ended up making three albums over the years together. So if you haven't listened to any of this stuff, highly recommend. Trio from 1987. She also released some bluegrass albums in the late 90s. The Grass is Blue, Little Sparrow, Halos and Horns. And then she released her first Christmas album in 30 years back in 2020, A Holly Dolly Christmas. Which is pretty good. It's cute. But I think the best Christmas album she released was Once Upon a Christmas in 1984. There's a lot of Kenny Rogers on it. I made a joke this last Christmas on Instagram, I think. That like probably 50% of Dolly Parton's Christmas songs are about sex. It's true. Or there's like sexual overtones. Right, exactly. Yeah, it's good stuff. But that 1984 album has Hard Candy Christmas on it, which is, I mean, maybe her best one, if you ask me. Great song. All right. So now let's talk a little bit more about her songwriting. I think that's the thing that she's sort of most proud of. She said in a 2020 book, if I had to choose just one thing to be, I would choose to be a songwriter. She's always said that she loves writing from the male point of view. She loves writing songs for men because a lot of her songs are sort of narrative story type songs. And she's written a lot of big, huge hits for people like Merle Haggard and Kenny Rogers and Hank Williams Jr. and all kinds of dudes. Right. She also plays a bunch of instruments. The guitar. The guitar, she says, is her strongest. And there's a lot of other string instruments that she can play. I saw a video of one of her concerts. She's got a banjo slung around her, like she's got a strap hanging from a strap while she's playing a fiddle really fast. It's pretty amazing. But if you really want to be amazed by Dolly, you should watch her play the saxophone. And in particular, at the Glastonbury Music Festival in 2014 in the UK, in front of a crowd of 100,000, she busted out. It's a great concert. It's called Yackety Sax. Yeah. The Benny Hill theme song. And it just killed, killed. It did. That whole show is a fun watch because it's, you know, it's in, it's at the Glastonbury Festival. And it's like, I don't know, I think her legendary status just like grew with that appearance. Oh, yeah. Like she was, you know, kind of a cult favorite in the UK. And then she became like a, like a pop culture favorite after that show. Yeah. Nine to Five, the movie that you mentioned before in 1980. It was when she got married. Got into movie making. And it is a movie, boy, not only does it hold up today, but it is, it was ahead of its time and like even more relevant today than it probably was then. Which is sad if you stop and think about it. No, no, totally sad. But it was based on an actual movement called Nine to Five, the Nine to Five movement from the early 70s that I guess Jane Fonda was aware of because she was one of the creators behind the movie Nine to Five. And that was an actual like movement led by secretaries starting in Boston. And it spread around the country. And they were protesting sexual harassment, low pay, getting passed over for promotions. And they had a great slogan that I saw, raises not roses. Raises not roses. Yeah. I love that. I love it too. Like talk about a great t-shirt. I don't need your flowers. Exactly. How about some money? Exactly. I'll buy my own flowers. Right. I can buy my own flowers. Yeah. That's what the back of the t-shirt said. And then parentheses quit pinching my butt. Plus also that's a Miley Cyrus song. Who is Dolly Parton's goddaughter? That's right. Yeah. And Dolly credits that relationship with the fact that millennials love Dolly. Yeah. I wasn't aware of this. So everybody knows, even I know, that Miley Cyrus was Hannah Montana on Nickelodeon from I think 2006 to 2011. Right. And she would have Dolly on here or there as Aunt Dolly, like her aunt, Hannah Montana's aunt. And I guess. Like millennials just grew up watching that. And that she just exposed herself, not literally, but figuratively to an entirely new generation. And it stuck like that's that's how they that's how they met Dolly. And they just kept following her and loving her from that point on. I love it. She was in a bunch of movies over the years. Best Little Whorehouse in Texas with Burt Reynolds, of course, part of the ensemble and Steel Magnolias. Very disappointingly, Livia doesn't mention my favorite Dolly. Second. Favorite Dolly Parton movie, which was Rhinestone with Sylvester Stallone. One of my big HBO movies early on. I watched that thing over and over again. Stallone sings. Have you ever seen it? No, I never have. I turned I turned the TV off after Life Force. You should check out Rhinestone because, you know, the premise is she's to make a country star out of Sylvester Stallone. And he has a song in there called Drinkenstein. Instead of Frankenstein. And the chorus is Budweiser, you've created a monster. And they call him Drinkenstein. Wow. But Stallone really sings. And it's just I think it's known probably as a bad movie, but it has a very special place in my heart. It sounds like the prequel to Tulsa King. So she also did you mention Sand Dollar yet? No. She founded a production company with Sandy Gallen, her longtime manager and friend. And They went on to produce movies like Father of the Bride, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie. She also did Straight Talk, which she was in, where she plays a woman who accidentally becomes a radio host and, of course, just shoots into the stratosphere in popularity. I never saw that. Oh, yeah. It was okay. Okay. Not her best work, but still. She was amazing in Steel Magnolias. I mean, like, if you go back. And, yeah, if you go back and watch some of those scenes between her and her husband in particular, she's a really good actress. No, she's good. In fact, but the Shelby I just did was more Sally Field. Now that I think about it. I detected a hint of Sally Field in there. All right. I think let's take another break, and then we'll – this one's going to go a little long, but that's okay, because we're about to dive into Dollywood right after this. Shelby. We'll be right back. The mid-'80s to mid-'90s would probably be the greatest era of skateboarding. Like, I know that's our era, but even skate historians say so. Yeah, well, the 80s are when Mike McGill invented the McTwist. Check this out. 720 degrees midair on a halfpipe. Oh, my God. Amazing. I don't know, man. It's just crazy. And that's where it came from, the mid-'80s, thanks to Bones Brigade member Mike McGill, plus also the 80s were the era of Nautus Coppice, who's one of the most amazing street skaters ever. Check out this video of him rail-sliding on the roll bar of a pickup truck. That looks like a video game. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, me too. And with YouTube Premium, exploring a topic like this is even more seamless, because it has ad-free viewing, which means we can watch classic skate clips uninterrupted, and we can really dig into that debate about what the greatest era of skating is. Yeah, and with background play, it lets us keep listening with our screen locked, which is great if we're doing something else, which we always are. But – But you still want to hear the video content. And, get this, with offline downloads, we can save videos ahead of time and watch them anywhere, even without Wi-Fi. If you go to the search bar of YouTube Premium and search for golden era of skateboarding, you can see that there's a bunch of different videos that come up, and they're from a bunch of different eras. There's, like, people skating in old pools in the 70s. There's, of course, the 80s, which were amazing to us. But there's still tons of people skating today that are amazing, like this guy Antoine. He's amazing, and he's skating right now. Here's an interesting thought. What actually makes something become your favorite piece of clothing? It's probably not because it's the trendiest thing in your closet. More often, it's because it fits well, feels comfortable, and works in just about every situation. That's exactly the idea behind today's sponsor, Built. They're a modern essentials brand creating foundational wardrobe pieces built around versatility, functionality, and elevated style. 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Just visit USPS.com slash Ground Advantage to start shipping with confidence. USPS Ground Advantage. All right, my friend. Here we are. I'll set it up with how it starts, and then you can just take over because you've actually been there. But in an interview in 1982 with Barbara Walters, Dolly Parton said something about being interested in opening up a theme park back home. Yeah. And there was a theme park. There was a theme park, Silver Dollar City in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. And the owners, Jack and Pete Herschend, heard this interview, gave her a call, and was like, let's get together on this. And they did to great success. Yeah, four years later, Dollywood opened. It reopened as Dollywood, I should say. Just that first year, they doubled their entries to 1.3 million people coming. Yeah. And that's not just a full year. It snows and everything kind of shuts down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. wintertime in Pigeon Forger and the Smokies. So I'm guessing they crammed a lot of those people in in a very short amount of time, probably summer. I don't know why I'm going off on this tangent, but it just seemed important when I started. It's called how theme parks work. Right. They close in the winter. Be quiet, you. So it was a success right out of the gate, I should say. And little known fact, or it's a rumor that a lot of people don't realize is actual fact there. She they buried a time capsule there on opening day and it contains an unreleased Dolly song. No way. That is not to be open until I think she's ninety nine years old. Wow. Which is what is she now? Seventy six. Seventy eight, I think. OK, so it's it's close. Yeah, we can wait. She sees it. Yeah. Oh, we'll wait. So tell me about Dollywood. I want to I want to know more. So it is a you can definitely believe that. It used to be a silver dollar city. They preserved a lot of stuff. There's a coal fired train that kind of takes you around on some neat vistas and everything. There's we went and we went around Christmas time, which kind of undermines my argument about shutting down in the winter. We went for Yumi's birthday, actually, like one year. And there was like a Christmas show where there's like singing and dancing. But it was so corny that I was waiting for everybody to be like, you know, we're just joking. Here's the real show. It never happened. It was. It was just that like kitschy and American and earnest. Yeah. And just corny. But it was very sweet in retrospect, especially hard to sit through, but very sweet. And then there's just a lot of like people dipping candles. There's tons of food to eat. There's a roller coaster that neither you nor I went on. But there's a museum there that's closed temporarily because apparently they're reimagining it. But it was originally called the Chasing Rainbows Museum. And Dolly Parton is a just self-professed. Pack rat. She saved everything, Chuck. Everything. The coat of many colors that she sings about. It's there. You can see it in real life right there. And it's the tiniest, cutest little thing you've ever seen in your entire life. It's so tiny. And this is a coat her mom made for her when she was a kid. Right. Out of old rags that she sang about in that coat of many colors. And it's what a great song. But then just to just to love that song and then see the actual coat and then just see how dinky it is. It was just amazing. The lists I told you she used to keep. She kept those. Those are on display. Wigs, rhinestones everywhere. But it's not just like this ode or tribute to Dolly. It's a genuine like curated look into her whole career. And it's it was one of the best museums I've ever been to in my life of any kind. Why didn't you guys ride the roller coaster? We're both scared of roller coasters. Oh, I don't think I remembered that. Yes, I've been scared of roller coasters for decades, but I feel like I'm one of the few people that can come out of it. OK. And I might go challenge myself and ride a few roller coasters this summer and see if I'm correct or if I'm really, really wrong. Well, you should go to Six Flags with Ruby and I, because there's nothing like getting your courage worked up than a seven year old who will ride anything. OK. Staring you in the face. OK. All right. I may use that. That's just the elixir I'm looking for. Yeah. Yeah. She'll go on whatever. And she's just like she wouldn't understand. She'd be like, why don't you want to go on it? What do you mean you're scared? I don't. You're kind of ruining things for me. Well, I want to go to Dollywood. So maybe we can go to Six Flags and then Dollywood and just do a theme park roundup. I strongly recommend it because there's like all sorts of stuff in nearby Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Yeah, of course. I've been to Gatlinburg. Ripley's Museums and just all sorts of just cool, super kitschy touristy stuff. Yeah. Oh, what's his name? The guy who sings Proud to Be an American. Lee Greenwood. There's the Lee Greenwood Cafe where they no joke play that song on a loop. over and over again the whole time. You're like, where's the next song? They don't play the next song. I heard that song every night of the summer for like five summers when I worked at the Stone Mountain Laser Show. Oh, yeah, I'll bet. I got my fill of it. Yeah. So we can talk a little bit more about her politics. And this is where the sociologists and anthropologists come in. There's a sociologist named Tressie McMillan Cottom that has written about how black women have always looked up to Dolly Parton as a role model, even though she is like, it's a very specific sort of white Southern thing that she embodies. Again, just, you know, testifies to her crossover appeal that she is to be admired by anybody. Her Q score, if you don't know what a Q score is, it's a marketing tool that basically, there's a bunch of things that go into your Q score, but it's basically how much people like you, how much they recognize your name. And her Q score is like legendarily one of the top Q scores of all time, celebrity wise. Yeah. She has a high positive Q score. They also do a negative Q score and she has a very low negative Q score. So she's among the most beloved and among the least disliked people in the entire world. Yeah. I don't want to know my Q score. I looked it up. We don't have one yet. Okay, good. But I was reading this article on the conversation and these two Australian marketing people were trying to figure out who would have been Australia's Dolly and they landed on Hugh Jackman. And I'm like, I can't disagree with that. He's pretty likable. Sure. Everybody likes Hugh Jackman. Yeah, I would agree with that. Even though he did the greatest showman. Right. People still like Hugh Jackman. The anthropologist comes in, a man named Jonathan Zilberg in 1995 talked about how she was loved in Zimbabwe of all places. And again, it's just like, you know, pick a country and chances are people there love Dolly Parton. And Dolly Parton's American and they talk about how Nelson, Mandela, while he was in prison in South Africa, got his jailers to play Jolene for the whole jail. Basically all Shawshank Redemption. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. And like you said earlier, she basically just avoids politics. She doesn't let any politician on either side use her music. If a Democrat uses it, she shuts them down. If a Republican uses it, she shuts them down. She just sort of sidesteps all that stuff. She's always, she's always been, you know, growing up, of course, in the 70s, there were a lot of playground jokes about Dolly Parton's breast size. She was very well known for it. And she's always been the first one to jump in and joke about it herself. Instead of being like the butt of the joke, she can just go along with it. And that's just, that's another really likable quality as someone who can laugh at themselves and not take things too seriously. I also saw it put that she, she, she knows that these jokes are going to be made anyway, so she can diffuse them by getting out in front of them and topping, you know, the lame jokes that like old talk show hosts would make. Yeah. I saw once she said that she burned her bra and it took the fire department three days to put it out. Like that kind of stuff. That's hilarious. That was her joke? Yeah. Oh, that's good. That's very funny. So I think we mentioned this before. Do you know that Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal on the planet was named Dolly because, because she was grown from a mammary gland cell? Yeah. I can't remember where we talked about that, but it really just goes to show like, that's how, that's how ubiquitous Dolly Parton's boobs were in the 20th century. I know. Like they were as big as she was basically. Yeah. They were definitely part of her. No pun intended. They were definitely part of her brand for sure. Yeah. You know, she was smart enough to lean into it. Another thing that she had done over the years is she, there are a lot of really dark songs that she's written. About, even though she's never kind of outright considered herself a feminist, she very much is. And a lot of the songs she's written over the years have been very dark songs about women who are either abandoned or suffering from sexual double standards. Or there's one brutal song from 1970 called Daddy Come and Get Me about a true story of a relative in her family that was basically institutionalized by her husband. So she's never been afraid to go down sort of in the tradition of the old sort of dark country murder ballad thing, go down these darker roads with some of the songs she's written. Yeah, I saw that she considers herself not a feminist, but in favor of all women. She's for all women. So it's like she doesn't subscribe to the movement part, but what the movement's ultimately about, she's totally in favor with. And that's super her. She made a very rare, overt statement when she came out in support of Black Lives Matter. And it really like, at a time where it was like you're casting your lot one way or another. And she stood up for it, which is pretty cool. She did. She also, in 2018, there was at Dollywood, the Dixie Stampede. She changed the name to Dolly Parton Stampede after people complained about the whole Dixie connotation and Civil War theme. She changed that up and she was just like, you know, I never really thought about, you know, the Confederate, imagery meaning what it meant to people. And so she happily changed it. And that's just the kind of person she is, I think. And she got guff for that. And she got guff for supporting Black Lives Matter from some of her right-leaning fans. But she can always explain herself, you know? And she does so in such a great way that you're just kind of like, well, fine. It's hard to be, you can't keep a grudge against her even if she goes against you politically. But she just so rarely does it. Yeah, agreed. Uh, she is, uh, we're going to wind it down with her business and philanthropy. Um, very savvy business person from the very beginning. Uh, she was smart enough to hang on to her, um, the rights to her own music and never give them up. Even when Elvis Presley came calling. Yeah. And wanted to cover I Will Always Love You. He wanted half the publishing rights and she was like, no way. Take a walk, Elvis Presley. He didn't. Apparently Colonel Tom called her up on the morning of the scheduled recording session and sprung that on her. And she said, she turned him down. And she said she was hoping that Elvis was, was as disappointed as she was. But that took a lot of gumption, especially to have it sprung on you like that. And she said, nope, not doing it. But that's one of the things that made her so incredibly wealthy. Like, apparently her music catalog has a net worth of about $150 million and brings in about six to eight million dollars a year for her, according to, I think, Forbes. And then her stake in Dollywood is her, her, um, her most valuable asset. I think it's like $165 million. Pretty neat. She has done quite well for herself. Yeah. Uh, she, I mean, these days she's, she's not stopping either. She's, um, she's on Duncan Hines buttermilk biscuit mix with her little cartoon face. They have fragrances branded by Dolly. Uh, they have pet clothes that she's branded with. Um, like just all kinds of things. She's not afraid to license her image. No. Uh, for sure. We've got that, um, the Duncan Hines frosting in our pantry. Do you? The chocolate, chocolate cream frosting. And then one other thing I saw Chuck, she wrote a book, co-wrote a book with James Patterson, one of the best, most favorite novelists in the entire world. It's called Run Rose Run and it's a thriller based kind of loosely on Dolly's story of, of making it in the music biz. Oh, wow. Yeah. I think it just came out. Okay. I might have to check that out. Yeah. Uh, she is very charitable as well. She started the Dollywood Foundation in 1988. Uh, just to get literacy going in her home County and it grew and grew and grew to the point where it is now in the U S Canada, Australia, the UK and Ireland. And to date, uh, the program has given out more than 204 million books across these countries. And, um, you know, she'll build a hospital in her County. Um, anytime there's like wildfires nearby, she's chipping in. Uh, she very famous famously donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt university medical center for COVID-19 vaccine research. And, you know, people don't credit her with the Moderna vaccine, but they're like that million dollars was instrumental in getting that vaccine to trial. Well, yeah, she also was like everybody go get jabbed. She, there was a video at one around of her, um, getting her own, um, vaccine when the first one, I think. Um, and she was singing vaccine to the tune of Joe lean and saying pretty nice tie in. Yeah, exactly. It was great. So, um, one other thing though, about her foundation, I, one reason she got into literacy, um, programs was because her father never learned to read. And apparently he told her just before he died that he was most proud of her for, for that work that she'd done with, with promoting literacy around the world. It's, it's pretty cool. It makes it even neater. Uh, and in addition to the vaccine, Jolene song, she also did a version of, uh, I will always jab you. That was less popular, less popular. Sounds a little aggressive. She's been nominated for 53 Grammys, 53. Uh, she's won 10, which I think that number should be higher. Uh, but you know, they have given her like lifetime achievement awards and, uh, Jolene and I will always love you were inducted into the Grammy hall of fame. So they have like heaped awards on her, even when she has not won the actual Grammy. Uh, and she's also won an Emmy. - Right? - Yeah, she was also up for two Oscars for best song for Traveling Through for Transamerica in, I think, 2006. And then 9 to 5, the song. Did 9 to 5 not win? No, it was beaten by Fame. Oh, boy, that's a tough year. Traveling Through was beaten by Hard Out There for a Pimp from Hustle and Flow. That's a good song, too. How are you going to top that? It's really hard. I was getting ready to trash whatever beat out 9 to 5, but Fame is a great song. That's a tough year. That is a very tough year. But she also has two Guinness World Records to her name, one of which is Most Decades with a Top 20 Hit, which really just goes to show how long she's been around and how long she's been huge. You know what else she has two of? What? Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Two! I know. Is there anybody else who has that? I think so. People in different media, although probably not a lot of people. I bet it's a pretty short list. One in 1981. And then one in 2018 when, I guess, the final trio of trio albums came out. So, if you think Dolly's slowing down, friend, you are dead wrong. Yep. She's got a new album coming out. So, she was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame despite her protests. She's like, I'm not a rocker. Apparently, she's like, all right, well, I better go be a rocker and earn that honor. So, her next studio album, her 49th, is coming out, I think, this fall. And it's called Rockstar. And she's going to be singing with some other rock stars, too. Yeah. Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney, Cher. I love it. Yep. Vince Neil? No. Not Vince Neil. That's correct. Not Vince Neil. Just kidding. That'd be pretty amazing, actually. You got anything else about Dolly Parton? Oh, I've got one other thing. Let's hear it. Before you answer. She wakes up at 3 a.m. every day. Oh. And just. Daughter of a sharecropper. Yeah, I guess so. That's amazing. Okay. You got anything else? I got nothing else. Okay. I don't either. I don't think. But I'm going to think of 10 things after we're done recording. I know. I'm going to. I've been listening to Dolly Parton all day, so it's going to continue on. Yeah. It's not hard to do. If you want to know more about Dolly Parton, friend, go listen to Dolly Parton. Go watch videos of Dolly Parton. Go read interviews with Dolly Parton. She was once described as a black belt interviewee. So, you'll never be disappointed with a Dolly Parton. And since I said you'll never be disappointed by a Dolly Parton interview, that has opened up listener mail. I'm going to call this great email follow-up from Arcades. Hey, guys. I want to tell you a story of my very traditional grandmother. She was very traditional in the Midwestern sense, and she was a homemaker. Oh, yeah? Kept books for my grandfather's ironworking concern. She didn't tolerate cussing or fussing and was a conservative dresser. She liked the calico. Calico. She didn't have any obvious vices, save one. Pac-Man. Oh, yeah? To hear her tell it, there was a time where she would wake up before her husband and five children, power up the Atari, and start a Pac-Man game. After 30 minutes or so, she would get breakfast on the table, get her family out the door, and do the books, clean the house, and then finally get back to her paused Pac-Man game, which she would play until it was time to start dinner when her family came back home. That's awesome. She had Pac-Man fever. That's good. Wouldn't be much of a story, guys, except here's the thing. She was really, really good at Pac-Man. Oh, yeah? She once told me she had the first 40-something levels memorized and could use them to rack up points and then thus extra lives. She got to a point where she could play the same game all day long. Eventually, she would describe getting to a high enough level where the game would freeze. Oh. And what she was describing was level 256, the kill screen. Mm-hmm. But since she was home alone every time she reached it and the internet wasn't a household thing, no one ever knew what she was talking about. She just ran. She'd go down the door and be like, somebody, anybody, come look. It was until many years later that I saw King of Kong and saw the footage of the kill screen my grandmother had described. Couldn't believe my eyes or the fact that my conservative grandmother was such an early skilled gamer. That's neat. She's since passed away, but every time the subject of Pac-Man comes up, brings a smile to my face, and I remember her and her high scores. That is from Erin Miller of Kansas City, the Kansas side. Oh, that's rare. You don't usually hear from those people. Kansas side. Mm-hmm. Well, thanks a lot, Erin. That's a fantastic story. I'm glad you could smuggle that message out of the Kansas side of Kansas City to us. And if you want to be like Erin and get in touch however way you can, try putting it in an email. Sending it off to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. And wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What actually makes something become a wardrobe staple? It's probably not because it's trendy. 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