“There is a healthy amount of dreaming that has to be done for any project to really be worthwhile. All of those doors have to be knocked on. Some have to be slammed in your face.”

Dolly Parton – My Life and Other Unfinished Business

Our most beloved stars do us a great service when they leave behind memoirs. The quote above by Dolly Parton is not only relevant to those who seek lives in the music industry. It reminds us that no one can achieve their goals immediately.

Dreaming does, and must, take place before we reach our destination, sometimes for years and years. (Many of my favorite authors did not publish debut novels until well into their sixties.) And we must learn to be grateful for the doors that are slammed along the way; they might be numerous, but with patience, we will reach the place we were meant to be all along—we will reach home.

Storytelling Dolly

No one could have been more authorized to speak on the topic than Dolly. She was born to Robert Lee and Avie Parton on January 19, 1946; the Partons would eventually total twelve children, of whom Dolly was the fourth. They lived in extreme poverty, but Dolly was always quick to assure her listeners that, while they did not have everything they wanted, they found ways to be happy.

Her childhood was rich, in fact—rich in music and storytelling. These were skills that she honed very young and which would eventually earn her fame. As a child, she sang on local radio and television programs. She always knew that she was going to be a star. She had appeared at the Grand Ole Opry by the age of ten. At thirteen, she made her first recording for a small Louisiana label. After graduating from high school in 1964, she moved to Nashville to pursue music professionally.

Following the news of Dolly’s death on August 25, I realized that while she was the type of woman I admire, I’ve always known very little about her. I had never paid attention to any of her songs. But even considering this want of information, her loss was a shock to wake up to, and a void that I—and all of us—have been feeling consistently since it happened.

I have begun to think that, underneath all of this, what I am feeling is the absence of a great storyteller. As I sifted through some of her greatest hits, I was struck by the purity and light with which she spins her yarns.

Coat of Many Colors

“Coat of Many Colors” is a particularly tender song in which Dolly’s talent for storytelling shines.

In the early chapters of her autobiography, My Life and Other Unfinished Business, she dedicates several pages to the story behind this song. Dolly lovingly tells her audience that her mother had a gift for sewing and quilting.

Dolly writes about one particularly cold fall, during which she did not have a coat:

Mama began to make me a coat. … she knew me and my personality, so she decided to make my coat out of the brightest, most colorful colors she could find.

This matches her lyrics, which say:

My coat of many colors
That my mama made for me
Made only from rags
But I wore it so proudly

In the book, she describes her first day wearing that coat to school:

I burst through the school doors like a multicolored whirlwind, wondering just how many people I could find to admire my coat. I was so proud of it. I wanted to be seen in it. I wanted to be noticed. ‘See my new coat?’ I said to one boy. ‘Naw,’ he sneered, ‘it looks like a bunch of rags.’

In the book, she proclaims “Coat of Many Colors” to be her favorite song that she ever wrote or sang. The thing about songs like this is that we can all relate to it in some way. Maternal love is heavy in the lyrics, as is the value of a gift that takes time and effort to complete.

The original coat worn by Dolly is gone; it was passed from child to child in the Parton family until it eventually disintegrated, leaving only the loving memory of it behind. Her mother made a replica years later, and that replica was displayed, along with the handwritten lyrics to the song, at Dollywood.

Dolly, in her storytelling genius, demonstrated that beautiful art can be created using scraps of memory and the stitches of a mother’s love.

We’re Not That Different

It is evident in Dolly’s writing style that she was an avid reader: her tone is humorous and light, and she does not take herself too seriously. As I read her book, I felt as if I were sitting with a very dear friend, listening to her witticisms and anecdotes.

She is honest about the struggles she experienced, but she is also able to reflect on the ways in which they made her a stronger woman.

One of the things I loved most was encountering Dolly the reader behind the songwriter. She has spoken affectionately about books throughout her life, and some of her literary loves feel appropriate for the woman she became. She has mentioned The Secret Garden, a book about a neglected girl discovering a hidden place and, in the process, discovering herself. She has also spoken about The Little House on the Prairie books, which seems equally fitting. And then there is The Velveteen Rabbit, with its tender idea that love and experience are what make us real.

Dolly has spent her career telling people that being “real” matters more than appearing perfect. Perhaps that is part of why her songs have such warmth to them. She understood that a tale does not have to be grand to be meaningful. Sometimes it only needs a bit of hardship and someone who knows how to tell the story afterward.

For all the extraordinary things she accomplished, the woman behind them was recognizably human. She grew up with books. She loved stories. She made something of the circumstances she was given.

Reading her memoir, I kept thinking about how easy it is to imagine that people like Dolly Parton belong to some different category of human being. She is, after all, Dolly Parton. But beneath the woman in rhinestones lived a girl who had very little–but, in truth, she was rich. She had a family, a dream, and a story to tell.

And maybe that is the most encouraging thing about her.

We are not that different.

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