On January 19, 2007, while heading toward rehearsals for the Broadway musical adaptation of 9 to 5, based on her 1980 comedy hit, Dolly Parton found herself riding around New York City in a limousine, taking in the sites on her birthday.
“All of the big city lights and all of the big music and it was my birthday and I usually try to write something on my birthday every year and so I was just riding in a limousine and I was looking out at the skyline, and I was thinking ‘Lord, here I am in New York City!’ all the way from the Smoky Mountains,” Parton told American Songwriter in 2014.
“And I was just singing in the back of the car while we were getting to the place,” she added, “and I started singing ‘Oh, I know I am only dreaming,’ just to take myself back home.”
At first, Parton thought it unusual to write such a “mountainish” song while she was in New York City, but it kept developing and finished up once she arrived at her destination. “I was writing it on the back of my script because I didn’t have paper, my ‘9 to 5’ script. … So I went in and this woman said ‘Do you need anything?’ and I said ‘No I’m writing a song I need to get somewhere’ and she said ‘Do you need a piano?’ and I said ‘No, you don’t have a dulcimer do you?’ And, so I just put it down.”
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At the time, Parton was recording her 42nd album, Backwoods Barbie, and brought her new ballad “Only Dreamin’” to co-producer Kent Wells once she returned from New York.
“I said, ‘Kent, I wrote a song that I really think is good, but I didn’t put it down with any music, so I’m just going to sing it a cappella,’” said Parton. “So I was down in the studio and I just started singing the song and I sang the whole song a cappella and Kent said, ‘God, I love that.’ And so he just started putting instruments on it, and so we didn’t record it like a record; he just started adding what he felt was that old-timey sound, and so he tuned his guitar down into that old mountain sound. Then we started adding stuff to it, and it was all based on my original emotion singing it a cappella.”
The longing lyrics tell of a lost love that will never be forgotten.
Oh, I know, I’m only dreaming
‘Cause I’ll awake and you’ll be gone
And my tears will still be streaming
As my broken heart beats on
Yes, I know I’m only dreaming
But I’ll just keep dreaming on
I will dream about the pleasures
That we shared in days gone by
And I’ll remember and I’ll treasure
Every kiss and your kind eyes
And I will dream that you still hold me
In your arms as you did then
And I recall each thing you told me
Hear your voice as I did then
Yes, I know I’m only dreaming
But I’ll dream, and I will too
“Only Dreamin’” was never released as a single but Backwoods Barbie was a nother success for Parton, reaching No. 2 on the Country chart and peaking at No. 17 on the Billboard 200.
“Well, I am just a Backwoods Barbie—too much makeup, too much hair,” joked Parton of the album title and the success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie film in 2023. “I was really happy when the ‘Barbie’ movie did so good. I’ve always loved pink and the Barbie Doll, and that was a great little movie. So yeah, I’m still the Backwoods Barbie.”
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