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Dolly Parton Interview
Some people have said that, with your recent albums, you’ve returned to your roots. Do you feel you ever left? Dolly Parton: You don’t ever leave. Not me, the country girl. Back when you’re trying to make a living, you’ve got to do everything you can to get a record played to make enough money, to be accepted on the charts. And so I had to work toward a formula, which I hate. You don’t make as much money doing what I’m doing now, and there’s a reason I had to try other things in the early days. If I could’ve made a living doing this kind of music, I probably never would’ve ventured out. I joke that I had to get rich in order to sing like I’m poor again. What does this album title signify? DP: I think we’re all a mixture of halos and horns. I know I am. It’s like the first verse of that song: "Tempted and tried with each step we take / We stumble and slide and make our mistakes, ask God to forgive us..." It’s like we’re always backsliding. I’ve always said, "I’m too good to be bad, too bad to be good." I’m always trapped somewhere between halos and horns, but my heart is good and I’m hoping God judges by the intent of our heart. If He does, then I’m fine. Was "Hello God" inspired by September 11? DP: I did write a song the day after called "Color Me America," which I do in my stage show. "Raven Dove" and "Hello God" were also inspired by where we all are at this time. It came from realizing how fragile we are, how everything can change with the blink of an eye, how we’re like little children—as the scripture says. We think we can do whatever we want until we get in big trouble. Then we want to run to our parents. Sort of like how we all turned to God at that time because everybody was so scared, you didn’t know what to do. You felt so fragile, so frightened. Every morning when I get up, the first thing I do is say, "Well, hello God." I’ve been doing that for years. It came to me that it would make a good song. When I started saying "Hello God, are you out there? Are you listening? Can you hear us?" all that stuff started coming to me about what I felt and I know so many other people were feeling. That’s one of my favorites on the album. Talk about your home in Tennessee and the inspiration it provides. DP: It was our old home place. I tried to buy it for years, long after we’d moved away, when I first started making enough money. Many years back, I was able to buy it. I’ve got it fixed up like a retreat, tried to re-create it the way it was. It’s just wonderful. I have a whole little village up there: the old country store, an old church on the mountain. It’s like I’ve gathered everything from my past and my childhood and made it into a village. But it’s the same old house, same old barn. I go up there and I feel momma and daddy, feel what I remember from childhood. It’s amazing how it inspires me. There’s such genuine emotion on this album and, for that matter, on all your recordings. Do you think that sincerity has generally been lost in today’s music? DP: Yes, I do. I think that’s one of the reasons everybody’s so excited about bluegrass, the old mountain music. People are longing even city people, even people that love hard rock and loud electric music—for some sort of realism. Progress is a great thing, but even though we’re so high-tech, we don’t want to grow so fast and so far that we forget that we come from the dirt and the land. People are connecting; it takes them back, sort of like how people long for the old cowboys and westerns. It gives you a feeling of being outdoors, being human, part of nature. Talk about the parallels between bluegrass and Celtic music. DP: All of these people here in Kentucky and in the Smoky Mountains were Irish and English. People developed in their own way and started adding their own sounds, their lifestyle and their environment. It’s all about telling stories. I think all that started when there were no TVs, no radios, and no telephones. That’s how people carried news around. That’s why there are so many sad songs. People would take all these songs around to different villages back in the old days. That’s kind of how we still do it in the Smokies. I think that’s tied into what our ancestors brought over and then what we added to it just by living in this world. But it’s all so very real, and it’s how people express their souls, their thoughts, their feelings. Are you planning to continue exploring film work? Can you compare the music and movie worlds? DP: Well, there’s no comparison. I’ve always said that music is my first love. But I do love the fact that I’ve been able to do so many things. The only reason I’m not doing more movies is I’m not getting offered any good parts. It’s like it was when my music died away as far as the public was concerned. When all the new country music came, for artists over 35 years old, you might as well forget about it. Of course I’m a little over that, but it’s the same with movies unless it’s like the character I played in Steel Magnolias. But I’d love to do more films when good roles come along. OK, I’ll ask the Led Zeppelin question: Why "Stairway to Heaven"? DP: I do songs that I just love. My husband has such an odd taste in music, and he loves Led Zeppelin. He’s been a "Led Head" from day one and also loves bluegrass and big-band music. "Stairway to Heaven" was always Carl’s favorite. It was kind of like "our song" because at romantic times or sweet times, we’d just be riding around in the car and if that would come on, Lord, he’d just knock us out of the car turning it up full blast. For years I’ve wanted to try to do it, but it made no sense with the other stuff I’d done. I thought, "I’m going to try it like I did ‘Shine’ and see if I can’t blend it in." It was personal to us, so I just took a chance on it. Some people said I was nuts to try. I said, "Well, I don’t see why not. What’s the worst that could happen? What are they going to do, not play me on the radio? They’re not anyway." [Laughing.] |
