Of All Dolly Parton's Hits, This Is The Most Personal Song She's Written

Dolly Parton isn't one of the leading ladies who changed country music for no reason. She's penned and recorded countless hits for almost six decades, like "The Bargain Store" and "9 to 5," some more personal than others — but there's one song she holds most dear. "I think the one that's most personal to me is the lil' 'Coat of Many Colors,' because it talks about my mom, my parents, and kind of gives you an insight," she said in a reader Q&A with The Guardian. "It also covers bullying, acceptance and all that."

"Coat of Many Colors" is about Parton's mother sewing a coat for young Dolly out of rags and scraps of fabric. According to DollyParton.com, in the song Parton gets bullied at school because of her coat, but she doesn't let their words bring her down. Parton expounded on the touching song in a 2015 interview with The Tennessean, where she called "Coat of Many Colors her "personal favorite." "To me, it's more than a song. It's an attitude. It's a philosophy." She spoke about how a picture book adapting the son's lyrics is used in schools for anti-bullying advocacy. "It lets people know that we're supposed to love one another for who and what we are, and to celebrate our differences." 

While she may not own the original coat anymore, its legacy lives on. Parton's personal lyrics spawned not just a chart-topping song, but the aforementioned children's book, plenty of covers, and a TV film, "Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors," in 2015 followed by a sequel, "Dolly Parton's Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love," in 2016.

Parton's answer about "Coat of Many Colors" in  The Guardian came in response to a question about the song of which she's most proud. "Well, I'm proud of all of them," she said. She also mentioned "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" as two of her other biggest hits. "Of course, the one that's most recorded is 'Jolene.' ... I'm so proud of it. And 'I Will Always Love You' is one of the great love songs, so I'm very proud of that too," she said.

On "Jolene," Parton told NPR in 2008, "It's a great chord progression — people love that 'Jolene' lick. ... And because it's just the same word over and over, even a first-grader or a baby can sing, 'Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.'" While "Jolene" may only have 200 words in its lyrics, that simplicity helps it become such a catchy tune, along with that guitar lick.

And of course "I Will Always Love You" is one of Parton's best, and it was recorded around the same time as "Jolene." "I don't know if I wrote them on the same day — but they were found on the same cassette, and so I wrote them during that period of time," she said to The Guardian. Even though "I Will Always Love You" is more closely associated with Whitney Houston, it originated from Parton's heartache.