{"id":127264,"date":"2025-09-10T09:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T09:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/127264\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T09:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T09:36:09","slug":"the-song-that-made-dolly-parton-and-porter-wagoner-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/127264\/","title":{"rendered":"The song that made Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dolly<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Butterfly Records \/ Big Machine)<\/p>\n

Wed 10 September 2025 5:00, UK <\/p>\n

Having friends in show business is tricky, and nobody knows that better than Dolly Parton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Parton has had a fair few prickly relationships over the years. One of the most obvious was with Linda Ronstadt, when their clashing approaches in the studio made for some considerably colourful reflections.<\/p>\n

But Parton has been subjected to difficulty her entire career. If it wasn\u2019t because of how she looked, it\u2019s because people thought she was a sell-out. And if it wasn\u2019t that, it was because people didn\u2019t believe in her ability to venture elsewhere. And this goes beyond fans, too, with even some of her closest circle implying they weren\u2019t entirely convinced about things she wanted to do.<\/p>\n

Like when she created Rockstar and wanted to cover Led Zeppelin, but her husband warned her against it, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know if you need to mess with that, because I think you\u2019ll get a lot of criticism.\u201d But the main takeaway isn\u2019t that people said she couldn\u2019t do these things, it\u2019s that she did them anyway, even when her decisions \u2013 as innocent as they sometimes were \u2013 backfired<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Which is how she found herself in the crossfire of a fight with Porter Wagoner. Parton was good friends with Emmylou Harris, and once wrote \u2018To Daddy\u2019 and gifted it to her for release in 1978. This simple act of kindness between friends didn\u2019t go over well with Wagoner, resulting in a fight that Parton said was probably their worst. Harris had wanted the song when she heard Parton play it in the studio, but Wagoner, knowing it would be a hit, wasn\u2019t convinced.<\/p>\n

Writing in her book, Parton said Wagoner reacted furiously to her giving the song to Harris, and he said, \u201cWhat the hell do you think you\u2019re doing? You can\u2019t give her that song.\u201d To which Parton responded, \u201cYes, I can, because it\u2019s my song, and because I\u2019m trying to build myself up as a songwriter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parton had wanted to support Harris and help build her career, giving the song away while knowing she could have also gotten a number one with it. But, at the time, that was neither here nor there for her. She\u2019d already gotten to a point, whereas Harris was still climbing the ladder. Still, the act made Wagoner seethe because he was so proud of their work that he wanted it to only ever be theirs.<\/p>\n

It probably also felt so explosive at the time because everybody knew what one wrong career move could do. And Parton was still reaching, even if she\u2019d already earned a higher level of success. But all that became water under the bridge as the years went by, when nothing ever came of it that actually damaged her career. <\/p>\n

If anything, it also proved the kind of character she is, helping her friends in an industry that wasn\u2019t exactly built for women to thrive. That, plus the fact that the song was incredibly personal, written by Parton as a reflection on the estranged relationship between her mother and father growing up. If anything, she wouldn\u2019t have taken it lightly, giving it away, and yet she benched her pride to help out a friend.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Butterfly Records \/ Big Machine) Wed 10 September 2025 5:00, UK Having friends in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,22641,60244,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-127264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-dolly-parton","tag-emmylou-harris","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}