During the early years of her marriage to Carl Dean, Dolly Parton began writing songs about her husband. In 1970, Parton released “Tomorrow Is Forever” on her duet album with Porter Wagoner, Porter Wayne, and Dolly Rebecca, and rerecorded it 40 years later for her 2016 album Pure & Simple, a collection of revisited songs written throughout her career, inspired by their nearly 60-year marriage. Then, there was “Jolene,” Parton’s 1974 anthem inspired by an auburn-haired bank teller, who developed a crush on Dean during the late ’60s.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
A year later, Parton released her twelfth collaborative album with Wagoner, Say Forever You’ll Be Mine, and the title track, another love song to Dean, went to No. 5 on the Country chart.
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[RELATED: Dolly Parton’s Tribute to Late Husband Carl Dean, “If You Hadn’t Been There”]
A “Forever Love”
By 2012, Parton was still writing more love songs to Dean, including “From Here to the Moon and Back,” which she originally wrote for the film Joyful Noise, and sang with her co-star Kris Kristofferson. “From Here to the Moon and Back” is a tender love letter to Dean and how she’ll love him till the end of time—I want you to know you can always depend / On promises made and love without end / No need to wonder how faithful I’ll be / Now and on into eternity.
For their 50th wedding anniversary in 2016, Parton and Dean had a blowout celebration, spending their second honeymoon in their camper by the lake, in Ringgold, Georgia, where they were married five decades earlier. To mark the occasion, Parton also wrote another song to Dean: “Forever Love.”
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“If I had it to do all over, I’d do it all over again, and we did,” said Dolly in a press release at the time. “I’m dragging him kicking and screaming into the next 50 years.”
On March 7, 2025, four days after Dean’s death, Parton released a song she wrote and recorded as a tribute to him. “If You Hadn’t Been There,” a reflection on the impact he had on her life and career.
“He is in God’s arms now, and I am okay with that,” wrote Parton following his death. “I will always love you.”
“Just Because I’m a Woman”
Decades before “Jolene” was going after her husband, and Parton was writing more love songs to him, she wrote one of her first to Dean. Less lovey-dovey than her other love letters to Dean, the title track of Parton’s second album in 1968, “Just Because I’m a Woman,” was inspired by a conversation she had with her husband earlier in their relationship about their previous lovers.
“My husband doesn’t particularly like for me to tell this, but he’s old enough now, so he don’t really give a big s–t,” recalled Parton in 2003.
“See, I had had sex before we met, but I hadn’t mentioned it, and he hadn’t asked,” added Parton. “We were married for eight months, happy as we could be, and all of a sudden he decides to ask. I told him the truth, and it broke his heart. He could not get over that for the longest time. I thought, ‘Well, my goodness, what’s the big damn deal?’”
Parton’s lyrics highlight some of the double standards women face about their past relationships and how they are often judged more harshly than men.
I can see you’re disappointed
By the way you look at me
And I’m sorry that I’m not
The woman you thought I’d be
Yes, I’ve made my mistakes
But listen and understand
My mistakes are no worse than yours
Just because I’m a woman
So when you look at me
Don’t feel sorry for yourself
Just think of all the shame
You might have brought somebody else
Just let me tell you this
Then we’ll both know where we stand
My mistakes are no worse than yours
Just because I’m a woman
Now a man will take a good girl
And he’ll ruin her reputation
But when he wants to marry
Well, that’s a different situation
“Carl and I fell in love when I was 18, and he was 23, and like all great love stories, they never end,” Parton wrote on her social media, shortly after Dean’s death. “They live in memory and in song.”
Photo: Dolly Parton, 1974. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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