Dolly Parton: A lyrical Genius!
Songwriters can inspire songwriters, and Dolly Parton most definitely inspires me. With her charisma, happy go lucky, and southern belle personality, she can make almost anyone laugh, or cry with her beautiful songs.
Dolly Parton has written some of the most amazing songs in the history of country music. Starting from "I will Always Love You" and "Here you come again". to "9 to 5" and of course "There was Jesus". One of my favorite songs of all time is "Here you Come Again" . The song starts off with a great hook, "Here you come again, just when I'm about to get myself together...You waltz right in the door, just like you've done before and you wrapped my heart around your little finger." With this song, she paints a picture of this relationship that is going back and forth. She is trying to get over him but just can't shake him! The bridge says, "All you've gotta do, is smile that smile, and there go all my defenses! Just leave it up to you and in a little while, you're messin up my mind and filling up my senses!". Such a cute and fun song. She comes up with the greatest songs with such simple and cute lyrics. Simplicity is everything sometimes!
She is so clever. When she wrote the song "9 to 5", her inspiration was her long red nails. She was initially writing "9to5" for the the theme song of a movie she was staring in with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. While she was thinking of a melody, she began clicking her nails and came up with the lyrics "tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition!" How clever is she? My favorite lyric in the song is, "Pour myself a cup of ambition."
Another favorite of mine is "I Will Always Love you". When Dolly wrote this hit, she was on the Porter Wagoner show in 1975. She wrote this song about how she will always love Porter, but needs to leave and pursue her career somewhere other than his show. Dolly writes, "Bitter sweet, memories, that is all, I am taking with me." She left the Porter Wagoner show right after she released this song. It went on to become one of the most famous songs in history after Whitney Houston sang it on her record.
Dolly paints a picture with every song she writes. She finds a way to sound so engaging when writing her songs, in such a simple and effortless way. She is a lyrical genius!
"Find out who you are and do it on purpose." -Dolly Parton
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