DOLLY PARTON ALREADY CHOSE THE SONG SHE WANTED PLAYED AT HER FUNERAL — AND IT WASN’T “I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU”
There are songs that become associated with goodbye long before anyone is ready to say it.
For generations of listeners, “I Will Always Love You” has become one of those songs.
Dolly Parton wrote it as a farewell filled with love rather than bitterness. Whitney Houston transformed it into a global anthem, and over the years, the song found its way into weddings, funerals, memorial services, and countless deeply personal moments.
But Dolly Parton once made something very clear:
That was not the song she wanted played at her own funeral.
She had another song in mind.
And the reason was deeply personal.
THE SONG THAT MEANT SOMETHING DIFFERENT TO DOLLY
Dolly understood better than almost anyone what “I Will Always Love You” had become.
People told her they played it at weddings.
Others told her they played it at funerals.
The song could mean a beginning or an ending, depending on the person listening.
Its message was simple but devastating: sometimes loving someone means letting them go.
Dolly knew the power of those words.
And she also knew that one day, the song might be used to say goodbye to her.
In a 2014 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Dolly reflected on watching Whitney Houston’s funeral.
When Whitney’s casket was being carried away while “I Will Always Love You” played, the moment suddenly struck Dolly with extraordinary force.
She remembered thinking, in essence, that this was the moment she truly understood Whitney was gone.
It wasn’t simply hearing her own song.
It was hearing it transformed into a farewell for someone Dolly had admired and cared about.
And perhaps, in that moment, Dolly also realized that one day the world might use those same words for her.
BUT DOLLY HAD ANOTHER SONG IN HER HEART
Despite the enormous emotional significance of “I Will Always Love You,” Dolly had already identified another song she wanted to accompany her final farewell.
It was an old hymn.
A song that connected her not to Hollywood, not to country music, and not to the extraordinary career she built — but to her father.
Dolly once recalled her father singing the song.
Its words spoke about the possibility of meeting again beyond this life:
“If we never meet again this side of heaven…”
For Dolly, those words carried something that no chart-topping hit ever could.
They carried home.
They carried childhood.
They carried faith.
And most importantly, they carried her father’s voice.
“MY DADDY USED TO SING THIS SONG”
Dolly explained that her father loved the song and that he used to sing it.
She remembered its message about struggling through this world and eventually finding another meeting place “somewhere in heaven.”
The hymn was called “If We Never Meet Again This Side of Heaven.”
Written in 1945, the song became part of the traditional gospel repertoire and was recorded by numerous artists over the decades, including Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.
But to Dolly, it was never simply an old gospel song.
It belonged to her family.
It belonged to her father.
And that made it irreplaceable.
Dolly revealed that the family had sung the song at her father’s funeral.
And then she made an extraordinary statement:
She wanted it sung at hers.
A FINAL FAREWELL THAT SOUNDED LIKE HOME
There is something deeply moving about that choice.
Dolly Parton spent more than half a century becoming one of the most recognizable entertainers on Earth.
She performed before enormous crowds.
She created hit records.
She starred in movies.
She built businesses.
She wrote books.
She founded charitable organizations.
She became an international symbol of Tennessee, country music, generosity, and resilience.
The world knew Dolly through the spotlight.
But when she imagined her final farewell, she didn’t choose the biggest song of her career.
She chose a song her father used to sing.
That distinction says something profound about what remained most important to her.
When all the fame disappeared, family remained.
When the stage disappeared, faith remained.
And when the world would eventually say goodbye, Dolly wanted to be surrounded by the sound that connected her to the people and place from which she came.
“I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU” WAS NEVER JUST A LOVE SONG
Dolly’s most famous composition had already taken on a life far beyond what she could have imagined when she wrote it.
She originally wrote “I Will Always Love You” as a farewell to Porter Wagoner when she decided to leave The Porter Wagoner Show and pursue her own path.
The song was about separation without hatred.
It was about leaving while still loving.
And that is precisely why it became so universal.
Whitney Houston’s version introduced it to another generation and turned it into one of the most recognizable ballads in popular music history.
But Dolly always understood that the song belonged to listeners now.
They could make it their own.
They could use it to celebrate love.
They could use it to mourn.
They could use it to say what ordinary words sometimes cannot.
And after Whitney’s death, Dolly experienced the song from an entirely different perspective.
She wasn’t simply the songwriter anymore.
She was someone watching her own words become part of another woman’s final goodbye.
DOLLY’S CHOICE WAS QUIETER
That is why her funeral-song choice feels so intimate.
“I Will Always Love You” belongs to the world.
“If We Never Meet Again This Side of Heaven” belonged to Dolly’s family.
One is a song almost everyone knows.
The other is a song connected to the sound of her childhood.
One became famous because Dolly wrote it.
The other became precious because her father sang it.
And when Dolly imagined her own final journey, she chose the one that brought her back home.
THE WORDS SHE WANTED TO LEAVE BEHIND
The hymn’s message is not one of absolute finality.
It is a promise of reunion.
If we never meet again on this side of heaven, there will be another meeting place.
A beautiful shore.
A place beyond the struggles of this world.
For someone whose life was shaped so deeply by family and faith, the words offered exactly the kind of farewell Dolly wanted.
Not simply:
Goodbye.
But:
Until we meet again.
That difference matters.
Because Dolly’s life was never really about endings.
It was about turning endings into beginnings.
Leaving one career chapter led to another.
Leaving the familiar led to new music.
Hardship became inspiration.
Loss became remembrance.
And even death, in the hymn she chose, became a promise of reunion rather than an absolute goodbye.
THE SONG HER FATHER LEFT HER
Perhaps that is why Dolly’s choice feels more revealing than any elaborate farewell could have been.
She didn’t choose the song that made her famous.
She chose the song that reminded her of the man who helped shape her before the world knew her name.
Robert Lee Parton was not a superstar.
He didn’t stand beneath concert lights.
He didn’t receive the world’s awards.
He was simply Dolly’s father.
And his voice, singing that hymn, remained with her.
Decades later, after all the fame and fortune, that childhood memory still mattered.
Enough that Dolly wanted the same song at the end of her own life.
A FINAL SONG — AND A FAMILY MEMORY
Dolly Parton’s legacy will forever include “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “I Will Always Love You,” and countless other songs that became part of the soundtrack of people’s lives.
But perhaps the song she selected for her own funeral tells us something those hits never could.
It tells us what Dolly wanted to hear when the applause was finally over.
Not the roar of an audience.
Not the biggest hit.
Not the song that made her a legend.
Her father’s song.
A gospel song about meeting again.
A song that had already been sung at her father’s funeral.
A song that carried her from childhood into the final chapter of her extraordinary life.
And so, when the time came for the world to say goodbye to Dolly Parton, perhaps the most fitting farewell was not the song the world expected.
It was the song she had chosen herself.
A song that sounded less like an ending…
and more like a promise.
“If we never meet again this side of heaven…”
For Dolly, that was enough.
Until the beautiful shore.