When Dolly Parton appeared, remotely, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert during the pandemic in October 2020, she shared three songs that she was most proud of writing. Of the nearly 3,000 songs she’s written, Parton narrowed it down to three, including one her former mentor and collaborator Porter Wagoner warned her against releasing, and one that some radio stations refused to play, “Down From Dover.” Released on Parton’s fifth album The Fairest of Them All in 1970, “Down From Dover” tells the story of a young woman rejected by her lover and her family after becoming pregnant.
“I just enjoy a lot of the stories,” Parton told Colbert. “That’s why I’m a storyteller.”
Parton also shared one of her favorite songs that she had ever written, “Coat of Many Colors,” the title track of her 1971 album. The song was based on a true story about how her her mother stitched together a coat for her out of rags, inspired by Joseph in the bible, and his coat of many colors. “It’s about my mom,” said Parton. “It’s about family, it’s about acceptance, it’s about tolerance, and even speaks to bullying, you know, kind of how the kids made fun of me at school.”
The third song Parton mentioned was her 1974 classic “I Will Always Love You,” which resurfaced nearly 20 years later with Whitney Houston‘s rendition for The Bodyguard. “It’s not just because I wrote them,” said Parton, who also famously penned “I Will Always Love You” and her other hit “Jolene” on the same day. “But that one is real special.”
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[RELATED: 3 of Dolly Parton’s Favorite Dolly Parton Songs]
“Bury Me Beneath the Willow”
During their conversation, Parton also talked about growing up in Tennessee and the somber folk songs her mother Avie Lee (1923-2003) would sing to her and her siblings. “I remember all of them,” said Parton. “Mama used to sing all those old songs brought over from the old world. Mama was a good singer, too, and she would just seing a cappella all the time. So many of those songs were sad—some of them just pitiful.”
Parton remembered one in particular, “Bury Me Beneath the Willow,” the story of girl who was left at the alter and later died. Then, Parton began singing the song to Colbert, a cappella.
Bury me beneath the willow
Under the weeping willow tree
Where he will know where I am sleeping
And perhaps he’ll weep for me
“Are You Crying?”
“There’s more to it,” said Parton after singing the first lines of the song and continuing:
Where o where can he be?
He’s gone to seek him another bride
He cares no more for me
“Are you crying?” Parton asked Colbert, who took off his glasses off and started wiping his eyes. Parton continued, singing Oh bury me beneath the willow / Under the weeping willow tree / Where he will know where I am sleeping / And perhaps he’ll weep for me.
“I better hush before you cry yourself to death and we can’t finish the show,” joked Parton.
“Like alot of Americans I’m under alot of stress right now,” said Colbert still wiping his eyes. “That was pretty beautiful.”
Parton added, “We used to cry when mama would sing them. She’d cry. We’d cry. Those old songs were just amazing.”
The Carter Family’s “Answer Song”
By the 1920s and ’30s, several artists started recording the song, most notabley the Carter Family, who popularized “Bury Me Beneath the Willow” in 1927. Nearly a decade later, the Carter Family released an answer song, “Answer To Weeping Willow,” in 1936, written from the point of view of the woman’s lover, who never meant to leave her at the alter.
My love is dead and buried yonder
Beneath the weeping willow tree
What wrecks my life and makes me wonder
Is because she died for me
Then lay me down in death beside her
For she’s all this life to me
That I may join and e’er caress her
In a land beyond the sea
In 1976, Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Rondstadt performed the song on Parton’s show Dolly. The three later formed a group in the late ’80s and released two albums together—Trio (1987) and Trio II (1989).
Photo: Terry Wyatt/WireImage
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