Dolly Parton spent her life turning her own experiences, memories and emotions into music. Even after death, her songs will continue to tell her story — including two that show just how thoughtfully she considered her musical legacy.
The country music icon, who died Tuesday (Aug. 25) at age 80 after a brief battle with cancer, had already decided what song she wanted played at her funeral more than a decade before her death. And, in true Dolly fashion, she also left behind another song that she specifically instructed would not be heard until her 100th birthday in 2046.
In a 2014 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Parton was asked what song she would want played at her funeral. While many might have expected “I Will Always Love You” — the song she famously wrote and recorded and then later watched become an even bigger hit through Whitney Houston‘s rendition — Parton had something more personal in mind.
“I’m sure they’ll be playing ‘I Will Always Love You’ when I die, just like they did with Whitney Houston,” she told the outlet at the time. But when it came to the song she actually wanted for her own funeral, she chose “If We Never Meet Again,” an old country-gospel hymn with a particularly meaningful connection to her family.
The song had been her father’s favorite, and it was performed at his funeral. Parton said she hoped the same song would one day be sung at hers.
The choice is fitting, given the song’s message about separation and the hope of being reunited in the afterlife.
Her funeral plans were indeed something Parton had considered in advance. Her representatives confirmed Tuesday that she requested a small, private service for immediate family. Her nephew and head of security, Bryan Seaver, also shared that Parton wanted to be laid to rest in a “beautiful bed of plush cotton.”
But Parton’s planning for the music that would remain until after her death went beyond her funeral. At Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, sits a locked chestnut box containing a recording of an unreleased Parton song called “My Place in History.” The song was written in 2015, the same year the resort opened, and Parton specifically arranged for it to be unveiled on what would have been her 100th birthday: Jan. 19, 2046.
Inside the box is a CD containing the recording, along with a CD player so that future generations will be able to hear it, outwardly a Dolly time capsule. The country legend even acknowledged the uncertainty of leaving technology from 2015 to be opened decades later.
“There’s no telling what music is going to be by then,” she wrote in her 2020 book, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. “Hopefully, it will play and the whole thing ain’t rotted.”
Parton also joked that she hoped she would live long enough to hear the song herself when the box eventually opened. She was 69 when she wrote and recorded “My Place In History.”
