If someone were to ask you to come up with a list of similarities and connections between British psychedelic rockers Pink Floyd and the Queen of All Things Sequined and Southern, Dolly Parton, you might be forced to resort to the abstract. (“Extravagant use of color,” “fascination with shape and size,” and “cultural influence” are a few freebies.) But there actually is a musical connection, too.
In 1974, Parton released “Love Is Like A Butterfly” off her album of the same name. The song is a romantic love song, quintessentially Dolly, comparing the feeling of falling in love to the fluttering of “soft wings in flight.” The butterfly aesthetic also became a signature element of Dolly Parton’s style. Her amusement park logo for Dollywood even uses a butterfly as the “W.” It was synonymous with Parton as a style icon.
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The song earned Parton her fourth No. 1 hit on the country charts, excluding duets. It remained on the charts for three more months after first entering Billboard Hot Country Songs. Four years later, Parton developed an unexpected connection to one of the rock ‘n’ roll world’s biggest acts of the decade.
How Dolly Parton Became Connected With Pink Floyd
In 1978, BBC1 debuted a new sitcom, Butterflies, which followed a middle-class family called the Parkinsons. Vocalist Clare Torry performed the sitcom’s theme song, which was, naturally, Dolly Parton’s “Love Is Like A Butterfly”. Just five years before the series debuted, Torry contributed some of the most iconic rock ‘n’ roll vocals to the best-selling album of the 1970s (and the fourth-best-selling album of all time).
This album was Dark Side Of The Moon, the magnum opus of Pink Floyd and what would propel them from the shadows of cult favoritism to the bright, glaring spotlight of the mainstream. Clare Torry’s contributions appear in the album’s interlude of sorts, “Great Gig In The Sky”. This track separates “Time” and “Money”, which helps separate two distinct and opposing feelings with one heartbreaking, reflective, and passionate bridge.
Interestingly, Torry walked out of her recording session with Pink Floyd that fateful day convinced the band wouldn’t use her work. She recalled their reactions, if registrable at all, as lackluster. So, Torry assumed she hadn’t given them what they wanted. All the while, she had just laid down one of the most powerful vocal performances in rock history without ever uttering a full sentence.
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