Dolly Parton: 'I broke boundaries just by being myself'

The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2 today featured an interview with Dolly Parton. Below are some of the highlights from their chat – some of which aired on Zoe’s show this morning, with the extended interview featuring in a podcast.

Here are some quotes from the interview:

Zoe: What does London mean to you? Is this a fun place, do you get time to go shopping do a bit of sightseeing?
Dolly: Well, I don’t get to sightsee nor shop as much as I’d like to but I always try to get some of it in. I’ve been coming here for so many years, even got to meet the Queen at one time many years ago, got a picture of that! So, of course in the old days when I had my band and it was all new, we’d take all the tours, so I have seen all the points of interest.

Zoe: How was it for you to look back through the changes you’ve gone through in your life?
Dolly: I do get emotional when you talk about it […] Some of the things, you just get emotional just thinking, ‘My God, did I really think I looked good in that? What was I thinking?’ I laugh out loud sometimes!

On shaking up Nashville and breaking boundaries:
Dolly: I broke boundaries just by being myself, I let a lot of, especially girls and young women, and people know that its ok to be yourself! A lot of the press , the people who were top of the line said, ‘Dolly, no one’s ever gonna take you serious looking like that.’ I said, ‘Well, this is how I like to look, this is who I feel I am, and I’m comfortable in how I look and if I feel good about how I look, no matter how bizarre it may seem to you- I’m gonna do my best work. And if my talent is really there, I’m gonna get discovered sooner or later as a serious song writer. If people hear the songs whether its someone else singing them or not, they’re gonna start taking me serious as a singer, writer, songwriter and as a person.’

Dolly is fulll of wisdom and her mantra:
Dolly: My wisdom is to be true to yourself I guess. Is that Shakespeare – ‘To thine own self be true’? I never read Shakespeare, but I’ve been credited all of things; when I say one of my favourite sayings is, and it might be somebody else has said it, and the next thing I know, it’s a Dollyism! But I just think, to that saying – ‘To thine own self be true’, has so much power in it. I know there is Dollyism in my book, ‘find out who you are and do it… on purpose!’. So it’s do it with purpose, but on purpose you know? You need to know who you are and what you’re about. And that’s where you find your strength, ‘cause if you try to emulate somebody else, you’re only gonna get so far ‘cause that’s not who you are and I’d rather do less and do it my way than to just try to do something somebody else has already done.
We all can take the world on a little piece at a time! But I’m not any kind of a hero. I’m not any kind of a saint, cause anybody can… I hear all the accolades and all the things people say about me and I think, ‘Good lord, I ain’t all that! Ain’t nobody that good! Ain’t nobody that important.’ I always say in all, that I ain’t even all there!

Is Carl [husband] impressed with the new album?
Dolly: He was! To be honest I was a little nervous… when I got the whole album done he said, ‘It’s really good.’ And to me, that would be like somebody else jumping up and down and putting stars on the wall or something. But for him to just say it’s good, it’s really good, meant the world to me.

On having a strong marriage and getting honest answers in relationships:
Dolly: Well, yeah, not in a cruel way! But if I ask him if he likes my hair – ‘too stringy for me’ or ‘it looks too important’ - you know like if it’s too stiff... he always calls it that, ‘It looks too important’, but I know if I ask him - he won’t just volunteer it - but if I ask him he’ll tell me the truth.

Secret to a relationship lasting so long:
Dolly: We’ve been together 59 [years], we dated two years, and then we just celebrated our 57th anniversary on May the 30th. But I think so much of it is the fact that we are honest and open and we have a warped sese of humour! He is crazy, he is so funny and clever. And I have a great sense of humour from both sides of my family so I think the humour has always been good. But there’s the respect and the love and I just like him! You know, I would have liked him if he wasn’t my husband, if he was somebody else’s husband I say, ‘You know that Carl Dean, ain’t he funny? Ain’t he a good guy?’, so think it’s just that mutual respect and we just like each other.

10 year old you - what would she make of what’s happened to you and your career and where she’s gone?
Dolly: I think she would be like, like how I used to as that little girl, look and see the people that I was impressed wishing I could be all that. Like, I’m hoping there are a lot of little girls looking at me thinking I can be all that. My first book in the Imagination Library is The Little Engine That Could. And I always say that I’m a little engine that did. So I think […] you really have to grow into that. I was basically shy at that time […], but you learn as you go and you develop. But I think she would just go, I think her mouth would fly open thinking, ‘Is that me?’. I think that little Dolly is still the same person inside of me. I never outgrew her, so I’ve kept her intact, loving my family, loving my mountains, loving my parents and being thankful that I can do things for my people back home, like the Dollywood theme park and having all that so… it’s the same little heart inside me.