The Daily Zeitgeist - Dolly Parton: WWDD?

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

In this episode, Miles and Jack are joined by comedian Lydia Popovich to talk about the closest thing we have to a living saint: Dolly Parton! They'll explore her rise to stardom/sainthood, her influence on the scientific community, her inimitable sense of style and so much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high. And the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right.

Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on. And the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings.

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Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken? But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name. Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing this has happened, and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, for wherever you get your favorite shows. A new year doesn't ask us to become someone new. It invites us back home to ourselves.

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on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hello, the Internet, and welcome to this, Spinoff episode of Do Daily Zytheist! Which we're calling the iconograph instead of looking at the zeitgeist through

the day's news and current events on Monday mornings, we're looking back at the Zykeyes through the powerful pop cultural horrockses that are our icons. Icons. We use these historical figures and famous characters to create meaning. Meaning. To build identity.

To learn how to deliver the greatest career breakup of all time. To know what the phrase is, over the shoulder boulder holder holder means in my case. That's how I learned that phrase. Was Dolly Parton jokes when I was six years old. And most importantly, we learned how to compliment someone into not fucking your man.

That's right. Today, we're talking about St. Dolly Parton, the Dolly Mama, a modern day religious figure, among many other things. We talk about people putting their religion into celebrity culture and their icons and as old-fashioned religion fades away, this is maybe our best active experiment in that.

It really feels like this is as close to a living religious figure as we've covered on the iconograph to this point. I'm joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray! Dolly! Man, I'm ready.

I love Dolly, and I know nothing about Dolly Part. I know truly none. Like I fuck with the music, but I don't, I think every, I'm just so glad we have the perfect guest today because I'm not going to lie. I went from, I think I remember very early on, I like on the show, I played the 45 version of Jolene sped up. Yeah, how it's just like a fucking whole other banger. And I remember Lydia coming on and talking about, oh yeah, this is that, da da da da da da da da and it was getting me so gassed up about dolly part and oh shit. Dolly parton is like sick, right? Dolly Parr is tight? Okay, okay.

Yeah, yeah. And so I'm ready. I'm ready to learn more. I don't know if I'm ready. This is going to be the first time that we've had a guest who knows more about the subject than me. After doing a week of research, we're thrilled to be joined in our third seat by a hilarious comedian. One of our favorite guests on TDZ, Dave Grohl once touched her arm and said, hey, you're pretty funny. So maybe she can come back for the Nirvana episode.

You can see her on stages everywhere. and she is our resident Dolly Parton expert. Hell yeah. Is Lydia Poppavit! Let me just say, first and foremost, I'm so thrilled to be here to talk about the only thing that I truly care about in life, which is Dolly Parton.

She is the thing that keeps me moving every single day, all things through Dolly. I love her dearly. She's the greatest American songwriter of our time. I mean, I could go on. I could do this podcast literally by myself, but I'm so glad. You guys.

Should we just get out of the way? the table. Honestly, why don't you leave? I've got some notes. We'll be back in 45 minutes. Jack, I think we fucked up. Pick the wrong person. For real. I remember there is a point where... I can't wait.

There's a point where you're trying to acquire a Dolly Parton pinball machine. And like, I was invested in that shit. I was like, God, I hope Lydia gets the Dolly Parton pinball machine. And also, it's in my living room. Yeah, I know it's in my, it's my den where I'm sitting right now. I'm sitting across from it. It's literally, I, own it. It is mine. I have it. She is me.

I would say that our love of Dolly, I think, is directly tied to Lydia's enthusiasm about Dolly Parton. Because every time, like, when the airport, like, renaming the airport thing came up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, Lydia, you know what's like, of course I fucking know about that. I fucking started it. I started it. And then I'm like, oh,

shit, my bad. If you hear something about Dolly and it seems cool and weird, I'm probably involved. Take a second. Look, keep watching the news piece. You might catch footage. Right. The news four times last year, just actually six times last year,

talking about Dolly Part. Yeah. And now, you're on the news. Welcome to the news talking about Dolly Park. So just in summary, broadly, in terms of where Dolly stands right now, because we do like to talk about what is her iconography. She has one of the highest,

Q ratings of any celebrity. We haven't mentioned Q ratings much on this podcast, but it's weird we haven't because it is essentially a measure of like how iconic somebody is. She's like top 10 most popular celebrities in the world. Also has the lowest negative rating of anyone. There's just like no negative sentiment out there towards her. In looking back over her career, I think the modern love for her is due to, you know, her career and talent, her personality.

Like, I feel like the best lines, like I watched nine to five, you know, listen to her songs. I think the best lines that I heard anywhere were not anything written for her. It's like the shit that she just says off the cuff as a human being. But also, like in terms of the religious part, because I don't think that's just coming from. from, well, this is a celebrity people like so much. And therefore, people have, like, a affinity for her that is quasi-religious. She does seem to both be giving off good energy and getting back good energy in return, like, in a way that, like, there's just a glow, the, like, Dow of Dolly Parton.

Like, she contributed a million dollars to a vaccine research that ends up being the Moderna vaccine that saves millions of lives. They name a scientific breakthrough after her as a boob joke, but it ends up being the fucking cloning of the sheep, like the most famous and you know, a cloning

that, uh, before science was going in a... Dolly the sheep? Dolly the sheep is named after her because they took a mammary gland. That's how, where the cloning came from and they were like, we'll call it Dolly Parton because she's the boob lady. All right, go on, go on. Keep rattling on.

of facts. One little fact from, like, just in terms of the good energy going out and coming back in, she at one point is incredibly kind to a country singer who is opening for her named Billy Ray. And when he has a kid, he makes Dolly Parton the Godmother to a little girl named Miley Cyrus. My favorite rapper? Who then asks her to Hannah Montana. Hannah Montana.

Jay's on my feet. J's on my feet. who then asks her to play her godmother on her show Hannah Montana and when that happens her fan base becomes like massive and incredibly young for somebody her age. It's just like this constant yeah outflow of good energy from her that then just like comes right back to her and it's it's why. It truly like there does seem to be this religious like philosophical

spiritual goodness. She like lives in the light and gives off light, I feel like. A thousand percent, man. I mean, honestly, I've always been a Dolly Parton fan, but it turned into like a religious experience to me, like the first time that I saw her in concert. I saw her at the San Jose Sharks Arena. I went with my best friend coach. I was probably 22 maybe.

And we went because we're like, oh, she's a living legend. This is someone we need to see. We love her. There's no way this isn't going to be incredible. And little did I know that I was going to think. spend like the second half of that show like quite literally sobbing because it was such an incredible experience like she was singing live at that point and her voice was so incredible and just the feeling of people around me like people around me were just like full of happiness and full of joy and like

she closes off all of her shows by singing I will always love you and like when that happened I turned to my best friend and like he's crying I'm crying and I was like oh my god is this like what we do with our lives now like is this Right, right, right. You're like deadheads for a dollar. Yeah. Quite literally. I'm like,

I grew up a deadhead in a deadhead family. So like that kind of like absurd like, oh shit. Fandom is like in my DNA. Wow. So like I literally like I've seen over 150 Grateful Dead shows. You know what I mean? Like I literally grew up in parking lots and shit.

Yeah. But like it was nuts. And I just was like, this is incredible experience. No one had made me feel like that quite literally since the Grateful Dead plus LSD. Do you know what I'm saying? Right, right.

It had that, like, on no drugs, feeling this full body, just elation and just feeling full of joy. And the same thing happened. The first time I went to Dollywood had the same thing, kind of had this out-of-body experience of like, oh, my God, this woman's light. Like, it's feeling this whole lot. Right, right. Yeah, like she just gives, you know, that's why she's the face of the kindness campaign. You know what I mean? And that's my favorite things when you travel around the country, you can be.

Pass it on. She's one of the faces for the pass-it-on campaign. in L.A. It's her and Mr. Rogers are the ones that I always see. Yeah, the vibes at her show is like people, like I remember, you know, the internet, but also, you know,

there were like news stories about people, like as she's having this, and there is this podcast, Dolly Parton's America, that's really good. And they talk about just, like, going to one of her shows. And it's like this incredibly diverse group.

And it's just like, the vibes at the show are just like, there's such half. happiness and joy and like a spiritual quality to this love affair between her fans and her. And for her to be that when like in in the 80s and like this is I was, you know, six and living in Appalachian part of the country. So maybe this was me. But she was just the the first, the original stand in for hot woman when I was like first, when I was like five. It was just like Dolly Parton jokes.

And it was like either a boob joke or like, man, that, yeah, right. Like I heard you're dating Dolly Parton, you know, like was like just like she was the hottest person. So like to go from that to this religious icon is kind of crazy. Just in turn, before we dig into her life, just the other measure of iconography that I wanted to touch on is. and this is our second icon in a row who had this distinction of being the queen of the tabloids. Tabloids are basically excess news being created when someone's icon is like too big for the actual news that they're creating with their actual life. And so people have to just like create new, create new shit and gossip and intrigue or like it's just not, you know, it's not enough for people.

and yeah, during the 80s, she was like on the front page of every tabloid. She found out at one point that this was partially being fed by her aunt who was mad at her because she wasn't invited to a party around the movie Rhinestone and so she was talking shit about her to tabloids.

But she comes from a huge family and it's like a southern family and sometimes that gets messy, but it wasn't just the 80s. When we started the show, Miles, I don't know if you remember this, but when we... 1970, yeah, I remember. Back in 1977.

When we started the show, we had a segment called Bloid Watch. Bloid Watch, yeah, everybody wants that back. Everybody wants Bloid Watch. The idea was that, like, you can find out a lot about America's shared consciousness from, like, what's on the front page of the tabloids, the supermarket. And I think we ended up stopping because it was somewhat repetitive. It was just, like, news over and over again about... a handful of people, and mainly Dolly Parton still, like in 2017.

There was a lot of Dolly Parton sick? Is Dolly Parton going to survive? Is Dolly Parton having an affair with an alien? So it's just like Dolly Parton's been an obsession of America since I've been storing memories. Well, and it's kind of crazy too because it is really a testament to her ongoing popularity. Right. You can literally 40, 60 years later still say, oh, Dolly Parton plus whatever and people are interested and want to look at it because people are dying to say something bad because no one says anything bad about her. Right.

Yeah. Like there's never, there's never been like a gotcha with Dolly Parton. It's never been like, oh. You know? They've tried. We'll get to like there's a federalist article. And then there was, I mean, we'll talk about the stampede and the controversy around that. Yes.

Yes. She dealt with it pretty well. All right. But so she just celebrated on January 19, so, you know, five days ago. She just celebrated her 80th birthday. Tennessee declared that the 19th will now be known as Dolly Parton Day. She was born. What if MLK Day falls on a 19th?

What do they do? Again, in the south, they're like, well, let's, he already got his. Let's make sure. Let's cover it up. with the white lady. That was like the one thing. You know what I mean? Both people contributed equally to our happiness. I got some AI videos of the two of them chilling

with the grand old Opry that I think you're going to enjoy. He got a joint in his mouth with like a standard sheet, writing music and shit. She's writing lyrics. Charlie Kirk's up there too. Yeah, yeah. He was in the background making pot pies. But January 19th,

1946, born in a one room cabin in the great smoky mountains of East Tennessee during a snowstorm, which was eventually especially cramped because she had 11's fucking siblings the one room shack is built by her dad

newspapers on the walls because that's like what you did when you couldn't afford wallpaper and she was like and it was nice because we'd put up a new layer of insulation and there'd be new pictures on the wall her first dolls were

corn cobs that they would like glue eyes onto. Like she was dirt-ass poor. Yeah, that sounds like. It's actually inspired to one of her first songs that she ever wrote called Tiny Tassel Top. Yeah, a little tiny tasselot. As as a little girl after her corn silk doll's hair. Yeah, she calls it.

She talks about a corn silk hair and you think it's a metaphor. She's playing with a literal corn cop. Yeah. She's playing with a fucking corn cop. Wow, what visual language. No, man. She's playing with a corn cob in there. Yeah.

Oh. Yeah. Oh. She wants cut a couple of her toes off while running around in a yard because there was like a broken bottle. And her mom packed them with cornmeal and kerosene and sewed them back on without any pain killers. Hold on. Hold on. What? Her fucking... I haven't heard that one. That's a new one for me. They were, they were sliced really badly to the point that like they were almost... Nearly severed. Her mom, they were dangling.

Mr. Bo dangles? And her mom packed them in cornmeal and kerosene. What is that? and sewed them back on. You know that was like medicine. I really want to know when they're like, did you do the cornmeal and kerosene? Like, of course I did cornmeal and kerosene.

There's a lot of that shit. Like when she first starts wearing makeup, she's like very, very interested in, you know, makeup and stuff like that from an early age. But like when she first starts, she's using like berry juice and a burnt matchstick for eyeliner. Like she,

there's just a lot. of like down home country shit. In her musical, she actually details all of that. There's these really great scenes where it's like her and her sisters like putting on this fake makeup and stuff. It's pretty amazing. Yeah. Oh,

I just found out the corn meal is to absorb the blood, the kerosene in antiseptic. Okay. There you go. Perfect. Perfect. Fair enough. I don't try this at home unless you grew up on in a one room cabin. No, that's some shit only dolly part.

I think that's the only, I think dolly part is the only person. like, oh, my toes came off. Can you just show them back on thanks? And then you keep fucking moving on with your life. Unaffected. She talked about in her memoir, she talks about meeting her best friend for life. Judy Ogle,

just made up as sounding name. God bless Judy Ogle. Real, the Vogles are a real family when you drive around Pigeon Forge in Sevierville. Like, you see like Ogle Road, like that family, there's like, the ogles are still out there.

You see signage with Ogle on it all the time. Yeah. And they met. And I think it was Judy talking about seeing Dolly for the first time. I might have it wrong. And it might have been Dolly talking about seeing Judy for the first time. But they were both poor. And one of them had what they called bloomer rubber in her hair as a headband,

which is the elastic on the waistband of like old blown out pants. And they just like pulled that up and they were wearing that. Like one of the members of the junkyard. gang, you know? Right, right, right. Yeah. Straight out of a fucking... Big toe shooting out of the, like a hole in the boot. Yeah. Yeah, like the lore that Dolly describes around the meeting of her and Judy, who my dog is named after, by the way.

Wow. Also with Judy to Noodles, because she's my best girl. So, of course, my dog's name is Judy. Anyway, but she says basically, uh, Dolly was tiny, right? She was little and back in those days, you had multiple ages and kind of a schoolhouse, but Dolly used to get bullied a little bit. And Judy Ogil was a little bit of a rough and tumble with a bunch of brothers. And Judy wasn't having that mess. So Judy was her first protector. So that's how they became friends is because Judy stepped in and beat some kids up that were

Hassel and Hassel and Dolly and they quickly became best friends. And they lived basically across the hauler from each other. So they would go about their business and meet and play and be able to kind of like meet between property lines and hang out. Yeah. Just another couple of details about how poor they were. they didn't have money to pay the doctor when she was delivered. So her dad paid with a sack of cornmeal. It was like what they paid with.

And she couldn't afford a coat. So her mom sewed her a coat using multicolored rags that they had laying around, which is a big part of her lore because it later inspired one of her most popular songs, coat of many colors. I also have that tattooed on my arm. The coat of many colors? Yes. The actual coat or the words coat of many colors?

The actual coat. Nice. Hold on. Let me see that shit. Is it on your form? Oh, shit. Yeah. I'm a pro,

Jack. What the fuck. I got a little code of many colors and then. Lydia is like, yeah, my best, my dog called Judy. Oh, code of many colors. I got tatted. Wait, what's the horse you one? I got a pair of tities with stars for nipples made out of rope and it says what would Dolly do.

Wow. WW double D's. I don't know if y'all saw that one. No. No. God. Damn. Yeah, there's a lot of wild, like, she got beat pretty relentlessly by both parents,

which is, you know, was called child rearing at the time. Yeah. But, like, once she, like, went missing for a while and, like, they thought she was gone. And then, like, she heard a dinner bell ringing on the cow's neck and, like, found the cow and, like, let it drag her back to the house. She's, like, all beat up and, like, starving. And she still, like, got whipped for that for going missing. So it's a tough upbringing for sure.

And her dad was illiterate his whole life. And I think there's something, like we talked about this with Elvis being coming up like very poor. Marilyn Monroe was born in like a charity hospital, was in like foster care. I think there's something.

So like a lot of our most powerful icons of the 20th century came up very poor. and I think like with Dolly like one of the things she says about her dad is that he is one of the smartest people she ever knew but he was illiterate I just feel like in terms of being an artist there's a power to knowing

that people are smarter than they might appear you know like that you like one of the most important things an artist can know is like not to underestimate how smart people are because like that just makes it easy to dismiss them and dismiss your audience. And like that, I feel like that's where a lot of, like, bad art comes from, is from, like, suits and studio heads being like,

yeah, we'll just, like, give them some slop because they're all idiots. And, like, just having that understanding, like, from an early age that this person who is illiterate is also, like, incredibly smart is, like, an important part of the way she views the world. Right. Well, life teaches us things that books can't, right? Like you could read every book in the world and not have a clue how to operate and function in the world.

Yeah, right. You can not know that kerosene is what you do. Right. Yeah, exactly. It's how you fix baby toes. Yeah, right, exactly. You know, you got to figure it out. You got to learn by experience.

They have, like, busted up instruments all around the house. She starts playing. She can play 20 instruments at least. She says she plays at them. And guitar is the only thing that she's really good at. She's very self-effacing. managed to get booked at the grand old Opry when she was 13. Johnny Cash introduced her by saying,

we've got a little girl here from up in East Tennessee. Her daddy's listening to the radio at home, and she's going to be in real trouble if she doesn't sing tonight, so let's bring her out here. But her and her uncle, who was a big part of her early career, had already, he was a songwriter himself and was kind of, they worked together in her early career.

But like they had approached Johnny Cash outside the Granal Opry like a year before and they were working on this and finally got through and she started making a name for herself getting on local radio stations on a regular basis between this and her moving to Nashville when she's 18 she's still going to like the local high school and this is kind of her first brush with like tabloid because everybody's like starting rumors about her about how she's like sleeping with famous people to try and like get to the top which you know is why she moves to Nashville the day after she graduates from high school um she uses paper grocery bags as her luggage um and she's so poor when she first

gets there that she has to sneak into hotels to eat leftover food off of room service trays and is just like walking around in grocery stores, eating before anyone notices what she's doing and then runs away. But she's, you know, very poor. Immediately starts writing. Also immediately meets Carl Dean, who is her lifelong husband, who just passed away last year. Who can be seen on the cover of her album, My Tennessee Mountain Home. He's actually in the background on the cover. That's like one of like the most famous pictures of Carl and one of like four pictures of Carl available to.

was previous to his passing. Yes. He was so in the background in her life. First of all, on their first meeting, she said he looked at her face when they talked, which was like, she was like, nobody looked at my face when we talked. And then it's, her marriage is just kind of coming off the stories for Maryland Monroe where she would like marry these famous men and they'd be these broken children who couldn't like deal with her having her own career. like Carl Dean goes to one early red carpet event

and leaves him was like, look, I want you to be successful and have like everything you ever want. I never want to go to another one of those fucking things again. And she's like, great. And so he's just never in the limelight to the degree that people start creating conspiracy theories that he doesn't exist, which she puts him on one of her album covers,

as Lydia just mentioned. Oh, that was like a response to the idea that Carl was some kind of like creation. Wow. It's also, it's an, it's an act of defiance because at that time her record label did not want her to be married, right? She's, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got to think about that. She's sort of, you know, on TV as a girl singer. Yeah. You know what I mean? Girl singers are supposed to be sort of attractive, available. You know, people want to spin all these tales and think about the relationship with her and Porter and I'm getting a little head. But in her musical, she actually. did a, I saw it her musical twice. I saw it the opening week, like basically the preview weekends, then I went and saw it, um, the very last night when it left here in Nashville. And there was such a big difference between, but the part I loved about it the most is she

gave the most information about Carl that I've ever heard. Like, I learned stuff about their relationship watching this musical that was like heartbreaking and beautiful. She really spends a lot of time talking about the moment she met him in Nashville and basically up until when she first moved to Los Angeles and became really, really. famous, famous, famous. And a lot of that time hasn't been discussed, but there was a period where Carl was just like, are you going to be married to me or not? Like, because she was traveling so much.

He was. There was a letter that was famously rumored about years ago. And she actually read the letter, like the actual, like her character reads the actual letter in the stage show where he's basically like, you know, I could have married anybody. I could have done anything. But like, I wanted to marry you. And I want to be married to you, not the idea of you, not your music, not this. like I care about, you know, Dolly Rebecca Parton, who's who I want to be married with.

And if I can't be married to you, then I don't want to be married. And so she had to kind of make this choice to, like, actively, like, pour into her marriage and make sure that, like, he felt loved and, like, that that was something that she treasured. And it wasn't more important than her actually going around and doing that. She has a song called The Sacrifice that she actually addresses everything she's ever had to sacrifice in her life in order to achieve fame. And it's written from a perspective of someone looking back. on their life. And she wrote that in like her mid-40s. So it's kind of amazing to see that she's

had this much reflection, you know, on what her, what it cost her as an individual, what it cost her as a woman to become the artist and this icon that she was. Brand even, yeah. That's just so, it's, it's really interesting to hear too. You're like, damn, how are they together? And like, you hear all these details like, oh, they're like, they have good communication skills and they're not out of their minds where he's like, hey, man, I'm going to voice my needs to you, my wife. Can we work this out and she's like, heard, heard. I love you. Let me figure this out.

And I'm like, and she would like figure it out in song so often. Like there's one of her early songs is like about a conversation where he was like getting mad that she had slept with men before she was married to him. And like, oh, that's a mistake. Yeah, yeah.

Men are just so, I like that I had this narrative of like him not being like need. Men are just so relentlessly needy. Oh, yeah. What are you going to choose? You're going to choose your career? or me. He, like, he kept construction,

he was working construction jobs throughout her whole career. Like, she made hundreds of millions of dollars and he just, like, kind of did his thing. Carl laid the best pavement you've ever seen. And I mean that as a euphemism and as a little bit of a little thing he did. He must have laid some. Can you go to places where you've seen where Carl Dean has laid the pavement?

Like, well, her, her, I feel like, if Lydia knows, she'd be like, I know, you want to see some of Carl's work? Come with me. All I know is that she has one of those. He purposely made her, like, the driveway into her house is like the glittery asphalt. It's not the regular kind. It's the kind that's like all sparkly and shit is like her driveway in Brentwood.

Yeah. So I've heard. I respect you to do too much to drive past her home in Brentwood. I would never. Oh, I have no shame. I could. I could. I know the address and everything, but I won't.

She starts dropping albums on all our asses. Her first album, Hello, I'm Dolly. Hello, I'm Dolly. Was released by Monument. She just has this, like, music flowing through her at all times. Just one little anecdote, like, you know, because a lot of people talk about how she's this, like, multi-instrumentalist, and she's, like, I said, like self-effacing and says she only plays at the instruments.

When she first presented the song 9 to 5 on the set of the movie 9 to 5 to Lily Tomlin and James Fonda, she just, like, was beating out the click track with her nails to be like, all right, so here's what it goes like. It's like that pitch perfect cups scene. She was just like playing the drum track with her nails. And then that is on the track.

Like you can actually hear her nails on the track, which is a fucking classic. It is crazy. But I think it's like that's such a small thing that like speaks to like not only her ability to compose the actual musicianship and like the song. you know, kind of layout around the lyrics. But even her lyrical choices and the songs that she was writing at the time she was writing was kind of crazy for women.

Like one of her first TV performances, like on the Porter Wagner show, she wanted to sing the bridge, which is a song about a woman killing herself by jumping off a bridge. Yeah. And it's a beautiful heart-wrenching song. And this is her first opportunity to be singing live on television. And Porter tells her he doesn't want her to sing this song. And she does it anyway.

Hell yeah. Can you imagine being. on TV in fucking 1967 singing a song about a fucking depressed woman who threw herself off a bridge and that's one of like one depressing songs. She also wrote songs in that same period like three songs about like

stillbirth. There's a beautiful song that she sings called Down from Dover that's literally about a woman getting pregnant and hoping that her her partner comes home and her partner never comes home and then she has the baby and then the baby's dead like talk about wanting to cry. She has songs about fucking orphans burning down. She has songs about fucking orphans burning down an orphanage because they're tired of being abused.

All of these songs are like heavy material written in the 60s and 70s when women couldn't even have credit. You know what I'm saying? She's out here doing the big work. But the only song she's getting credit for are, you know, dumb blonde. Sure.

Because I'm a woman. Right. Yeah, yeah. The dichotomy there is like what does it for me. Is it like it doesn't have to be one way or the other for Dolly. She's more than happy to show you like the print and proper kits and face.

but she's also like, have you heard of death? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just so you know, it's fucking heavy out here for women. Especially, too, like to your point, in an era where most people have been like, just get her on medication. She's talking about wacky shit right now. Like, we don't want to hear an opinion. And then, yeah, that's so, it's such a beautiful moment of subversion

to have that sort of be your television debut. And also, I'm sure communicated to many of the people watching who were like, that probably must have instantly resonated in a way, A lot of the men who are like, what the fuck is this, dude? And other, like, I'm sure a lot of people are like, yo, I think I just found my new favorite artist. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's also, it's the women can't be sexual, right?

And if they are sexual, they need to not have a brain on their shoulders. And so, like, the whole idea that women can't have is sexuality and still be smart. And like, I just, that's been a through line through her career. It's incredible. Right. Yeah, they talk on the podcast, Dallie Parton's America about there's this long history of murder songs in the country and folk music tradition. that like start go back to the UK but basically the songs are narratives where a male narrator sings a story about murdering a woman yeah and like she was writing songs where she was like

what if we like told the story from a woman's perspective yeah yeah yeah but like just the idea that like there's that many songs where it's like and then I bashed her head in like they're sad songs, but also, it's like, well, why the fuck are you doing that, man? And then she was like, yeah, maybe it makes more sense for me to be. Bash is fucking henna. Yeah, yeah. So, like, talking from the perspective of a woman who's been victimized, a lot of people have tried to say that she's a feminist.

She hasn't rejected the idea that she's a feminist. She's just rejected the word feminist because, like, the quote about this that our researcher, J.M, put in here is that, I think the words and titles just have some connotations. When I think about feminist, you think about the women that are anti-men and you think of women that have been so mistreated, they have to make some sort of statement. I'm all about empowering women, but I'm all about empowering all people. But it's like she doesn't reject being a feminist. She just rejects the word feminist and like how people are going to respond to that word.

I mean, Dali is a master. in politics. Like, this woman has been able to straddle the line saying everything and saying nothing at the same time. She is a really remarkable way of not offending anyone. But, like, there is no doubt whether or not Dolly likes the word feminist or not. Dolly is a feminist. Like, there is no two ways around it.

You look at her body of work. You see the presentations. And I keep referencing this musical because it's her most recent, most, like, autobiographical piece of work. And she literally, like, it came out. out three weeks after Carl died. So, like, she made all these insertions and all of these subtractions to kind of account for that. So, like, you're talking about a woman in her late 70s at this point, 79, you know, about to be 80, who's revisiting the entirety of her life, right? And what are the

through lines that she wants to present to represent to Dali, My Life, the musical? And two thirds of that final musical are about being a woman in this industry. She addresses the paparazzi and all of it from a female perspective of like, I do what I need to do because I'm a woman and this is my power and these are the things that are lined up against me and this is how I want. But she always does it through the dolly lens and that's how she kind of escapes that like feminist shawl, right, is by being, no, no, no, this is just my story, me as a woman. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But also, if you're a woman, you don't have to put up with that shit. She's like, you know what a fucking time it is. There's a great quote from her about being awesome at business, which she clearly is. as you said, there are basically two types of men you have to deal with in business. The ones who want to screw you out of money and the ones who want to screw you, period. The second guy is the easiest to deal with.

If I catch a man who's not looking at my eyes when he talks to me, I have scored two really big points with him already. A smart woman can take a man who thinks with his small head and turn the would-be screwed into the screw-e. She's great. Another famous one I have from her, and I took a screenshot of the end of it.

because it's like, oh, that's exactly how she said it. I always fuck it up. But it's, I'm up front and I will tell you where to put it if I don't like where you got it. That's right. Like, that's perfect, you know, and then she talks about her age and she says, you know, I'm whatever age I have to be. I always say I'm as old as yesterday, but I'm as new as tomorrow. Yeah.

That's what I mean about, like, media mastery. Yeah, she's slick. Yeah, yeah. She's very slick with it. Yeah. Just real quick. Some of her songs are extremely dark. there are other ones from this period that could have been so much darker.

Jam found this detail from, I think it's her memoir where she talked, so there's this 1977 song Apple Jack. It's just like a fun tune about a banjo player in an old orchard check. And in her memoir, she reveals that it was inspired by a real life local near where she grew up who was rumored to be having sexual relationships with his dogs and also was believed to have murdered and eaten his mail order bride and her daughter, like, by the local people. So, like, she turns it into this, like, sunny, happy song. And she says, uh, people tend to fear what they don't know and what they feel they dislike. All kinds of rumors circulated

over the hills about the old man. He had a bunch of old mangy dogs. And some said he had sex with them. Well, there is no doubt he slept with them. It's not likely the relationship was actually consummated. Uh, there was one. time when he sent away for a mail order bride. After a while, this woman came to live with him. She was large and unsightly. The woman had a grown daughter, and right away, rumors started to fly that the old man did them both. It seems like they stayed for about eight or nine months, and then they disappeared. Naturally, the rumor mill kicked into high gear. Of course, the old man had killed them. The only disagreement among the rumor mongers was as to whether or not

he had fed them to the dogs or eaten them himself. I love it. I love that. I love that. I love Appalachian lore. I know. There's so much good appellation lore. Wildly spun out of, and like, what a better way to become a songwriter to just take these extrapolations of stories and turn them into these allegories, right? That's sort of time and space and culture. But no,

I have a bunch of really good, like, spooky ghost stories that, like, actually happened to her. There's, like, one time where they're, like, living in L.A., I think, and, like, the, or maybe it's Nashville, but, like, they have their doors locked. and they hear somebody walk in and they think it's Judy who like would just like come and go in their house and then they wake up the next morning

and the doors had been locked but then like all the faucets are on and like she said she woke up in the middle of the night and like watch one of the faucets turn on and it was Lydia Popovich. Yeah, it was Lydia. Sorry, darling. I mean, that whole thing too

like was just even like the Apple Jack song and her being like, yeah, this guy had dogs and like yeah, he's fucking them or whatever. I think also like it's a number. other sort of arrow in her quiver in terms of how she knows how to manage narrative and perception, too, because she's coming from a place where she's like, I've seen this shit, I see this shit all the time, okay? This dude who had a couple dogs in his bed. Yeah, everybody, they're, like, people will just fucking lose their minds. And because I've seen, like, some of the most intense versions of that,

I'm really adept at navigating it, especially as someone who's the subject of so much conjecture throughout her career. Yeah, yeah. She has this song called Joshua that really, lyrically. It's like, it's upbeat, it's fun, but like if you listen to the lyrics, it's about this scary man that lives out in the middle of nowhere that, like, is big and like bearded and like intimidating. And it's hard to tell like what age the woman who, it's singing from a woman's point of view. And it's not a real story, but it's one of these stories. But it's like, you know, she decides to go and show up to Joshua's house and she breaks into his house to like see what's going on and to find out who he is. And he comes home and she's like, oh shit. And instead,

like, she just like has a cup of tea. with him and ends up going over there on purpose regularly and basically ends up like having a good time with this dude and like marrying him and like fucking him down and I'm just like what a wild story to be like hey y'all heard of this fucking creep in the woods let me go check it out let me let me find out

he's actually kind of cool and then she's like actually that's my dude yeah with Joshua he could put it down actually he's fine as hell y'all know Joshua's out of there fine as fuck in the woods bored of shit big old dick you know she's like honey he's fingered in zoo glass, okay? Yeah, she's just like, listen,

but let me tell you about me and Joshua, all right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fucking so good. She has so many of those songs, and I'm just like, what, it's like, it's so great. I love it. Yeah. This research also gave me some good insight

into the movie Nashville, which I don't think I fully understood until doing this research, and we're getting to the Porter Wagner of it all. So she gets a big break in 1967, when she's hired to replace the female, singer on the Porter Wagner show and she begins duetting with this guy who's like

twice her age and releasing albums with him their album covers are insane like the outfits that they're wearing are so funny but wait what are the albums called I just want to it's a lot of like we found it Peter Wagner and Dolly Parton we found it as a good one to look at because they're wearing matching suits

the fuck is this shit It's a lot. Porter Wagner was a very, like, dandy, fancy gentleman, but in a country way. Like, literally, Porter Wagner is like the founder of country glam. This man did not have a suit that was not bedazzled. He is famous for being incredibly vain. We're talking head to toe. All kinds of things. They're called nudie suits by the gentleman who actually, his last name was nudie, who was like kind of the creator and the tailor of these suits. Porter Wagner made this style of suit famous that you now see people like host Malone. whenever he wears like a suit right, right, right. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Porter Wagner had a buffon that made fucking Elvis's look like playtime. Yeah, and at one point he had a

crazy perm on one of the covers. He has a crazy perm. That's what, you know the character in Nashville who has the perm and he's like the older, he's like the older, very established country singer. I was like, oh, that's Porter Wagner. Like as I was doing the research,

I was like, oh shit, that was totally based on this guy. And yeah, his suits. Yeah, full, full blown. Full blown z on the narcissism. So when she first starts, the audience hates her because the previous singer had a lower, richer voice and the audience is just immediately like, hey, fuck this lady. She's not the other lady. And so they had to do duets to get the audience on board. It was kind of creepy because

he's literally like twice her age. And some of the songs, some of the songs were like daddy daughter and then some of them are like hornyish love songs. And I think so this like gives him a belief that he's like rescued her from this initially hostile audience, which by the way, every audience is always initially hostile to change. Just every time you try and do something different, they're going to be like, hey, certainly in the late 60s. Is this shit? Yeah, yeah, right.

Are you kidding me? Yeah. So he is completely convinced that she needs him. and is shocked when she decides to eventually move on. And also it's like this feels in a normal Hollywood arc that like this would have been the second husband, that, you know, there's like all sorts of rumors that they were sleeping together.

They definitely had like a very like emotional relationship that she says was never consummated or anything like that. But ever there were, The rumors flew, but they never get together. And he starts trying to control her and her career as she's becoming a major star. He wanted to prevent her from taking career opportunities and keep her under his fold. And so she eventually leaves the show in 1974. And the way that she does that is she walks into his office and is like, I wrote this song for you.

and she sings him, I will always love you. The, the most famous love song of all time. Right. And he, like by the end, they're both crying.

And he says, well, I guess you can go if you let me produce that song for you, since it's the best thing you've ever written. She's like, fine. But first of all,

just like, what a way to get out of an unhealthy, controlling relationship with a boss who is clearly, like, in love with you by writing them

the kindest breakup song. Like when you look at the lyrics to that song, it's basically a song that's like, look, you are my king. I have to get out of here because if I don't, I'm going to get in your way king. Right, right, right.

So, which I always thought was it, like in the context of the bodyguard also, I always thought those lyrics were funny that like Whitney Houston is being like, we have to break up because I, a world famous artist, would only be in the way of,

you a professional bodyguard. You. But like, you know, it's just, he's just trying to be a normal guy who can kick shit. You know what I mean?

If you got fucking a beautiful black queen on your arm who's fucking worldwide, you can't just kick any shit. You got to get shit. That's true. She is getting in his way. That's a good point.

He can't just go and pick up a hot pocket and scratch his balls. He's got to deal with Whitney fucking Houston. Yeah. It's holding him back. Yeah. Yeah. Two questions I love from this period.

She said making the decision to leave was easier than the leaving, which I feel like every breakup I've been involved with like that is like a perfect way of encapsulating that. Also, every relationship is like a house with a second floor. It's got two stories. Hey, come on, and it was interesting too because when I saw the musical the first time,

I was shocked because she spent so much time on that porter stuff. And again, I saw stuff in that musical I had never read before. I'd never heard her talk about. And she really portrayed him extremely abusive. Like, he was so abusive to her to a level that, like, I didn't understand until I saw it visually, you know, being acted out by actors, obviously.

But it's just different. And then I was like, God, this must have been even so much worse because reflecting on it this long, like, this much later in life and just still feel this strongly about it. Right. You know, and she ended up, like, current version, like, they've edited a lot of that out. And I think that was smart.

But I'm glad I got to see the first version of it. it. It was fucking four hours long. It was very long. But, you know, the final, I think, is two and a half. You know, so they cut out an hour and a half. That's a lot. Yeah, yeah. But it was very hard. But that's also wild that like that is her version of events now in retrospect

because, so he sues her for $3 million and like goes on a spree in the media, be talking like cash shit about her. She is never like very... Always takes the high road. Yeah, always takes the high road.

What is he, what did he sue her for? He basically sues her for ownership and rights and basically he believes he made Dolly Parton. So when she went on to record Jolene and everything else, he feels like that's his money. Oh, he's like, you're taking money out of my part. Oh, I see. He also did, I mean, you know, had her sign a predatory contract at this time. So like, by the letter of the law, she did owe him a lot of money. But it's wild though.

like she has like, you know, come out and talked about how abusive he was because towards the end of his life, she does like go reconnect with him before he died in 2007. He's, he is kind of ruined by her. When she leaves, like he just can't fucking work. She also like takes his right hand with her like the, all the musicians like are like, well, we're going to go with the really nice lady who's so talented and not a fucking monster. pieces of it. Right, right. And also it's like he's aging out as well, right? Like, he's still a songwriter, but like he's not, he's battling his ego during this time. So his ego is

making it difficult for him to actually move forward. And he has so caught up in her actual success. It's, he wants credit for her success. Yeah. Right. Impedes his ability to even move forward in his own career. Right, right. Yeah. You know, and he ends up selling off his publishing because he can't afford it because he's he's broke he needs he needs to pay his bills and then he ends up getting sick and the laura is basically dolly parton went and purchased she purchased his catalog for him yeah he owned all of his catalog and then she gave it back to him when he was on his deathbed so that his children would have something to live forward on without being asked is that true now you said is that a rumor that that's damn dolly no she just always yeah is going out of her way to like make things right and just like

even though this person has been, like, publicly a complete monster to her is just like, all right, well, he's clearly hurting. Let's take care of this. And also she acknowledges, like, she wouldn't be where she was if she didn't have certain opportunities. So she's like, I don't want to discredit his, his, you know, participation in my success. However. Yeah. Yeah. And also she's like, let's not get it fucked up, though.

I'm still dolly. To Jack's point, it's like, it's her larger giving spirit, which is like, why should his children suffer because their dad was an asshole? Sure, sure, yeah. Right? Like his children, his children's children shouldn't have to suffer because of that. If she could do something, she's going to pay it forward because it's like it goes back to her overall thing, which is like, I have more than I need.

I mean, I think that's like what's really interesting too. Like we're just, I'm hearing about her upbringing, all this shit she's been through. The tremendous amount of empathy she has just based on her upbringing and her life just already gives her an insane amount of wisdom on how to really. operate and treat people to always know, like, okay, this is the right move in terms of helping a person or knowing the sins of the father shouldn't apply to the children. It's, yeah, I'm like, I'm like, I'm starting to see the matrix of darling parts of wisdom more and more. It's amazing too because we think, I mean, something right now that young artists have really,

I feel like leaned into and sort of a negative way is like this hustle mentality. Like, I always have to be working. I always have to be hustling. It doesn't matter who gets in my way. It's about me. I feel like Dolly Parton's life at career shows you that like, yes, you should hustle. Yes, you need to make sacrifices. However, you don't need to leave a wake of fire and blood behind you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. There is a way to move forward and to put yourself first and to prioritize your art without sacrificing your immediate family, the greater good, the world.

Like, if there's no one around to receive your art, then what the fuck are you doing? Yeah, what's it for? New Year, new goals. And in this economy, a better money plan is more. necessary than ever. I am Matt and I'm Joel. We are from the how to money podcast and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to how to money on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

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Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy as in compassion. If you want this to be the year, you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's underneath, listen to the mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. So just a little more,

and I will always love you. Went to number one on the Billboard charts in 1974 and again in both the 80s and the 90s in the 80s because she performed it in the best little whorehouse in Texas. The movie with Bert Reynolds. Depending upon which station we're on. Yeah.

They changed the name for the TV friendlies. Oh, the best little chicken ranch. The best little chicken ranch in Texas. That sounds so good and intriguing. And then the Whitney Houston version became a sensation thanks to the bodyguard and being just a fucking complete banger. Dolly says she was driving her car

when she first heard it and she like had to pull over. She was like it knocked me off the road. Elvis Presley was a massive fan of I will always love you, sang it to Priscilla as they were walking out of their divorce and tried to record it.

And then the night before the recording session, our old friend, Colonel Tom Parker, who you can listen to our Elvis Icons episode. but called part and was like, hey, by the way, Elvis is going to need at least half the publishing on this motherfucker if she's going to record it.

And she was like, no. Absolutely that label. Yeah. You can eat half my shit. Why the fuck would I give it to you? Get off my phone. Who the fuck? Fake-ass cowboy, you fucking dutch motherfucker.

I feel like Elvis, that would have been a good one for Elvis. But another big fan of this song, speaking of narcissists, Saddam Hussein was a massive fan and an Arabic cover became his official campaign song in 2002.

I'm kind of shocked he had the restraint to not sing it himself. I have it here that I'm just going to play it for you guys real quick. That's supposed to be waves. You can kind of

hear a more. God damn. Still work. Still works. Doesn't matter the language. That song fucking rips. That song fucking rips. That's a real so fucking hard.

Every step of the way. Saddam's not wrong. Saddam's not wrong. All right, Saddam. Got to give you that one. In case you're wondering why it sounds like they've like got, you know, 8 bit waves going in the background,

the music video for that one takes place on a beach. Ah, okay. So there's also iconic lore that Dolly wrote Jolene and I will always love you on the same day. Yep. In hindsight, she's like, I don't know if it was the exact same day. They were recorded on the same like session tape, like where, or like the, you know,

where she like takes down the songs. They were like right next to each other. Right. And I feel like she might have been a little haunted by this. Her two greatest songs, two of the greatest songs of the 20th century being written, like on a single day. Like she later talks about how she is, she's like, I'm sure I've like forgotten so many good songs.

Right. Like just, it like suggests that sometimes you're just in like God mode. And if you're not writing it down in that moment, like you won't catch it. It's like a terrifying thought for any creative person to have is just like, you might not know it. And it might be the day that like fucking Jolene and I will always love you like come to you. I talk about that in my stand-up back. It's sometimes how I close my show. and I tell people that and I say, like, I'm a huge Dolly Parton fan and I say that that thing.

And then my whole thing and my messages is like, think about that next time you think you've accomplished something. Right. Like, you haven't done shit. Like, you haven't done anything. Just like getting up and writing two great songs. Even if it's like one at breakfast and one at lunch. Do you know what I mean? Right.

And that session tape, by the way, that she's referring to is quite literally a cassette tape. Yeah. She's just like her saying to like literally like a tape recorder. Like a tape recorder. Yeah. Like push down the two buttons and record into the tape recorder. She did that well into the 2000s. As for what Jolene is inspired by,

she said that once she was going to the bank with Carl and there was a hot redhead bank teller who she said, she had everything I didn't like legs, you know? She was about six feet tall and had all that stuff that some little short sought off honky like me don't have. That's how she described herself when she was like the fucking number one sex symbol in the world. Yeah, but that's the charm, man. But honestly, I want to see

what that fucking teller looked like. I don't know. Can you imagine? If she had Dolly Parton shook like that? Yeah. But maybe she was just homely as fuck. And Carl was like, this bitch ain't going nowhere. This is nice. Right. The teller wasn't named Jolene. That name came from a young fan who asked for Dolly's autograph and

she'd never heard the name and was like, that's pretty. I'm going to write that into a song that will define generation. but on Dolly Parton's America, you get to hear her tell the story and it kind of reminded me of that part in the Beatles documentary, get back where you watch Paul McCartney

kind of like will the song get back out of his bones. Like he's just like, like, mumbling shit and then like it just like starts like vibrating out of him. Like she's talking about how she's like, so I heard the name and I was like,

that should be a song. And so I was just like insisting on trying to remember that song. And so I kept being like, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene. And like just reminding herself of it, like gives her the chorus to it. Wow.

And then sometime later, she gets jealous of the bank teller and writes one of the great songs of all the time. We talk so much about like how Jolene came to be and sort of like the name, the song who was Jolene, but we don't spend enough time talking about that fucking guitar leg. So good.

We don't spend time. That is an incredibly difficult and such a unique riff. Like you don't hear that type of guitar instrumentation on a lot of songs and even a lot of country or bluegrass songs. But it's so remarkable and it shows the level of skill

with guitar that Dolly had. To be able to put that meandering riff into like the courting that she has around that song is like pretty intense. Like that is not an easy song to just stumble into. The arrangement on it is phenomenal. Yeah, because wasn't a lot of her guitar.

I remember reading a thing just like as a music person. Like her fingernails dictated a lot of how she played guitar too. Yes, she holds and plays guitar is different. And she also like different tunings too like because of her fingernails are also smaller because she's tiny. Yeah. All of these guitar like bodies are so much smaller. She's a sawed off hockey. She needs a little tiny guitar.

They're like the size of a lady. Sand on the pump. Sipping on a 40s smoking on a blunt. I'm sorry. I had to bring Red Man and Methamman into it. Oh, okay. That's like so funny. Yeah, I would. It'd be funny to probably see her with a regular guitar and like, oh, you look like the ABC cartoons. All of her stuff is custom. She's played Pusta Martins for a very, very long time. So it's just, it's an intense sound. But yeah, the way that she holds your guitar, the way she plays her instruments, totally different because of her nails. She has special picks and stuff. It's great. Yeah. The music's great. The lyrics are also really, like it's such a unique, like trying to, like I said up top, like compliment someone into not fucking your husband. husband and just, but, but also like she's clearly taken by Jolene.

Like, it's almost a love song to the person who is going to steal your man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a song written from the cuck chair. But also, seriously, though, imagine, like, I hope that that lady before she died because, or maybe she's still alive, I hope that bank tell her somewhere just like telling her grandkids, well, you know. Yeah. I'm Jolene, motherfucker.

Yeah. Y'all's daddy could have been named Carr. How, Lydia, how have you not figured out who this bank teller is? I know, that should be a podcast. I'm not the only one. Honestly, like, that's, it's a whole thing. It's like, who is Jolene? Where is Jolene? This has been a question that has been asked.

What's the furthest people have gotten to identify? They just know the bank maybe that she worked at? Well, there's, well, there's two things, right? There's who is the little girl named Jolene that the song actually got named after? And then who was the bank teller? Right, right, right, right. So it's both. Like, I'd love to meet either, right?

Like, do we know where this little girl is that was named Jolene that met Dolly Parton when she was five years old and has a song named after her? And then is this bank teller still alive and well? How many kids does she have? Does she even know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. Does she even know? I mean, there's no idea, probably. Yeah, right, because it could have just been a bank teller who's like, and there you go, Mr. Dean.

There's your deposit slip. And he's like, thank you. And Dolly Parr's like, this motherfucker trying to take my man. And she's like, honey, I don't even know you or him. what I'm at my job. All right. So this is when around the time when her movie career kicks off.

It's also when country fans start getting mad at her for selling out and going pop. She has another good quote around this. She said, I'm not leaving it. I'm taking it with me and taking it to new places about country. I just want to also say this is, I remember from

the aughts, this same backlash happening to Taylor Swift. Totally. And I just want to say, if you're a country singer and you ever start getting shit for going pop and you're not making up a fictional character named Chris Gaines, you're probably on the right track. It seems to work out for country singers when they go pop and their fans are like, this is too pop. Taylor Swift did, I think it worked out for her and Dolly likewise. And I feel like in the last year and a half two years, we've been

going through a thing of now pop stars wanted to go country. Everyone in their grandma wants a country song now. You know what I mean? And you've got people that are sort of splitting the difference. I mean, Sabrina Carpenter came and did the opera. You know what I mean? She's, you know, she did a song with Dolly Parton. She seems very influenced by Dolly Parton. Big time. I feel like she's kind of a little Dolly reincarnate, to be honest. I wasn't really aware of who she was

when I, like, listen to some of her music and then did a little research on her songwriting. And I was like, well, look at this little Minks. She's a little tongue in cheek, ain't she? Yeah. She's on his cell. Her sexual double entendres, like, really feel like any, anytime you get a, just a quote from Dolly Parton talking about sex. It's always sounds like a

Sabrina Carpenter Lier. Yeah. She is friends with Jane Fonda and Jane Fonda's friend Karen Nussbaum started a real-life organization for female

office workers called 9 to 5 and they decided they wanted to make a movie about it. At first it was going to be a drama about three secretaries murdering their boss. And then they eventually decide to make it a comedy and they write the character of Dora Lee specifically for Dali Parton.

even though she'd never acted before. And Fonda reason that Parton songs have a kind of depth in humanity that made me feel like she could act, and people would want to see the movie because of her. Because at this time, she was, again, like, famous for being the hottest person on the planet. The only condition she had for doing the movie was that she could write the theme song,

and that's when she writes the song on the back of her script on set, and then is like, hey, Jane Fonda, hey, Lily Tomlin, come over here. starts tapping her nails and is like didda-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- and they're like, uh, yeah, I think that that's great. That's fucking works.

Jane Fonda and then Lily Tolland like turned their back. This motherfucker is so fucking talented. What the fuck? You can't deal with this. Cup of ambition. That's such a fucking great throw-way line. A way to describe coffee.

She was, by the way, sued by the writers of a song called Money World, who claimed that 9-to-5 was a rip-off. It's unfortunately impossible to find that song on any streaming platform because there are three million rap songs called Money World that have come out in the past three years alone. Stom. Best Little Whorehouse in Texas comes out.

She's described the difference between making 9 to 5 and the difference between making Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is the difference between like your first sexual experience with like a very gentle lover and then being sexually assaulted. Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was apparently a fucking nightmare. There was a bumper sticker at the time in Hollywood that said, honk if you've been fired from Best Little Whorehouse

because so many people were being fired from the set of that. That's hilarious. But it was a big financial success and people loved her in it. And that's where she sings, I will always love you, that gives that song another second life.

Then she makes round, And it's a critical and commercial failure. Sylvester Stallone talks about it as the most fun he's ever had making a movie. Whereas the story from Dolly Parton from it make him sound like the biggest fucking asshole in the history of the world. At one point on set, she saw an unhoused man while shooting on location in New York, wraps a shawl around him for warmth. and Stallone comes up, pulls it off,

and says that the man's poverty is his own fault. And Dolly quote says, I grabbed the shawl back from him and wrapped it back around the man. Then I stood up right in Slice's face and said, hey, look, that could have been you, you ungrateful son of a bitch, except by the grace of God.

Stallone still calls Rhinestone. The most fun, hey, it was really fun. Most fun. I've made a movie. You know, I learn a lot. Dolly Parton loves Bums or something. So funny.

That movie is a wild movie. I do love it. I own it on DVD. When I bought my car in 2016, I have a different car now, but it had a DVD player in it. And I specifically called it. I could watch, right? Like, I literally had three DVDs in my car. And one of them was Rhinestone.

It's so good. The other one was trapped in the closet. I'm not proud of it. But you were watching the R. Kelly trapped in the closet DVDs in your car. I had it in the car. It would be fun just to pop. I used to think it was a funny bit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before we knew what we knew, you know what I mean? I'd pop it on and I'd be like, you've been for people and they'd get in and they'd open the door and they'd be like, and they opened to the door. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And I just, it was a funny bit. What's this little person doing?

He's like, hold on, come on, keep watching, keep watching, keep watching. Wow. So this is also the time that she becomes like a national sex symbol, international sex symbol. She's talked about how the inspiration for her style was the town tramp when she was child, she saw a woman in her town

who people would call trash because she dressed in tight dresses and had high heels with plastic goldfish in them. What she's describing is basically like a, what a move, how a movie dresses someone to be like, this is a sex worker. And she was

just like, that's fucking fire. Like that looks amazing. And she would like get punished for dressing the way she did. But that was just like her first experience with being like that's just me being me. Like, I just think this is fucking cool, which I didn't, I didn't realize it was like such an early affectation. I assumed it was like a thing where the people, like the label was like, we got to sex this up or something. She's just like always been like that. I think that looks good. I think that's like the best way to dress. That's one of my favorite things is there's not as many of them as there used to be. At Dollywood, there was a museum called the Chasing Rainbows Museum that predates the current like Dolly Parton experience. And it was.

this two-story museum that was filled to the brim. And I'm talking like walls collaged with notes, handwritten things, pictures, people, places, things. And she had all these pictures. And there was lovely pictures of her in like the 60s and the 70s just like off like, like not on a TV show. Like her in hot pants next to a fucking horse. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. Like her walking down the street holding kitty cats in hot pants. And you're just like, oh, so you really were just about that life. You were about that life. You are in a skin tight sweater. and the smallest shorts I've ever seen and nine inch high heels

walking down a gravel road walking a horse. Like, let's go, bitch. Yeah, come on. Saw it off honky. Give it. Yeah. No wonder Carl was like, babe,

as long as you come home and put those shorts on. I know. Right. It's where you were for the week. Yeah, I will be in a dark room. Yeah. By myself, if that's what it takes. Also,

I'll be over here laying pavement. I'm curious. The idea of the goldfish in the shoe, that first came to me. me from I'm going to get you sucker where there's, you know, fly guy who was the pimp who had the goldfish in the heels. And now I'm like ripping off Dolly Parton lore. How far?

I mean, or did she have a false memory from? Yeah, yeah. Or like did she because it like I got that from movies. But she does like say that in her story about like seeing the town tramp and being everybody calling her trash and her being like, no, that's what I want to look like. That fucking rules. I don't know. Yeah.

Well, no, pleasers have existed for a very long time. Pleasers is a company that makes a specific time when you think of stripper shoe, that's a pleaser. And Leasers does make

a, like, a version that is the big acrylic that has a hole that you can fill with whatever you want. You can fill it with sand. You can fill it with water and fish. You can fill it with money. Like,

and those have been around forever. So I think both can be true. I think that I'm just like, you know what I mean? That's all. I feel like you're, in my mind, Keene and Ivory Wains

was referencing Dolly Parton. Yeah, yeah. A thousand percent. There's a good anecdote from her first time visiting New York City where I think it was her and Judy were interested in seeing a porno movie on 42nd Street because that's what Times Square was back then.

I love that for them. And they were there and she was dressed as she dresses. And they were mistaken for sex workers and harassed by some guy. And Dolly was packing a gun and pulled a gun on the guy and threatened to, quote, turn him from a rooster to a hen.

And that line was later worked into nine to five. She does say that in the movie nine to five. Wow. She just, like, has movie lines coming out of her at all time. She posed in Playboy, not nude, but was the cover model. And Barbara Walters interviewed her at this time and was like condescending.

Yeah, condescending as fuck. But then, like, eventually. was like, I eventually realized her insides went as phony as her outsides. And basically, like, fell in love with her, so did America. But I feel like that's the journey, everyone who found out about her as, like, sex symbol boob lady, you know, eventually you get to know her and you're like, oh, my God, like, fuck Mother Teresa. We've got a real living scene here.

Yeah, real life. So not everything she touches turns to gold. I do want to talk about this sitcom that has just a crazy story. So, 1993, CBS creates a show called Heavens to Betsy, that's about an egotistical country star who dies, gets sent back to Earth to make amends. So this feels like the character she was made to play, a angel country singer.

The production was a disaster. The show was hampered by behind-the-scenes problems because the writers were in L.A. The show was filmed in Orlando. And a new producing team was hired. And they actually, like, got into a kicking and punching fight in the writer's room. Wow. So they produced six episodes in six months and airs zero.

Oh, shit. I just can't imagine caring that much about a script. I'm writing to, like, punch somebody in the face. I'd be like, all right, right, your way. Right, right. Like, fuck, all right. Okay. You're obviously big mad.

Do it. I've been at writers before like people get super like you can hear their voice shaking like they're about to start crying over some shit and that's when you go okay yeah let's try that let's try that but when it comes to happens to Betsy

the stakes are high yeah yeah she's also indirectly responsible for one of the biggest disasters in TV history the Chevy Chase show because Fox approached her about hosting their late night talk show and she was like

oh fuck you know I'd really love to. What about Chevy Chase from SNL? He'd be good. And they were like, oh, okay. And they hired Chevy Chase. It was a fucking disaster. Wow.

But she also has a production company. It's called Sand Dollar because it's Sandy, I forget his last name, but her producing partner who passed away. Oh, Fax. I want to say. Yeah, Sandy Kofax. No, no, that's a baseball player. Sandy Koneg, maybe.

Oh, God. That's going to bother me. The thing's called Sandaler. They produced the movie Father of the Bride and the TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah, that's right. I remember that. And Angel, too, I think. Yeah, she still sends the cast Christmas presents.

I wonder, is she involved in the reboot? Because they're rebooting that. I know. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see. She once entered a Dolly Parton look-like contest. That was like, you know, a drag contest.

at a LGBTQ bar and competed against drag queens who were doing Dolly Parton and were, quote, prettier than I could ever dream of being she lost and received the least applause of any contestant when she took the stage.

Wait, like on the low? Or she was like, they're not going to clock that, it's me. On the low. It was supposedly it was a place that was in Knoxville that she went to. And they do like a Dolly Parton, like Night of a Thousand Dollies is a big thing out here

for drug clubs. And so it was like a night of a thousand dollies thing and she went. So yeah. You're like there's already yeah. Yeah.

Big blonde wig's going around so it's not like you're going to notice the other. Wow. She came in 30s. Yeah. I mean, I get it.

She's not, you know, she's not quite drag queen, but she was the real deal. I mean, she had her own variety show too. You didn't talk about that. She had a whole show

called a dolly show that was on. For five years, right? It was very popular, broke a bunch of people. There was weird sketches. There's a weird sketch where she, like, marries Hulk Hogan. There's, like, a lot of weird stuff.

Like, Bobcat Goldthew was on it. I had a really good conversation with Bobcat about, like, what the hell was not like being on, like, the Dolly Parton show. And he was like, I was really on drugs at that time, but like, it was crazy. He's like, it was good, though. Those episodes are like, that show was all over the place, but, like, the set was beautiful. Like, they used to have the swing from the set and then the backdrop at Dollywood at that museum I told you about. But it does, they've taken it out now. It doesn't exist now.

It's in their archives. But, oh, my. so much. Yeah, I know, there's so much. Like, so she opens Dollywood in 86, I think, which it had been another, um, amusement park that was like civil war themed. Yeah, basically it's like, she's in partnership with Herschel brothers who own a lot of parks. They also own parks that are up in Branson, Missouri. But I think it was called like, it was like a silver dollar city or something like that. Yeah, silver dollar city is what it was called. Yeah. And it's massive. It has a, like, exact replica of the one-room cabin that she was born in.

So you can go in there, look at the fucking newspaper, wallpaper. But it also had a show called the Dixie Stampede. Oh, I remember this. This is separate than Dollywood, though. Let me be pleased. It's nearby, right? It's nearby. It's in downtown Pigeon Forge.

There's a lot of sort of dinner theater shows that exist. So there's like a Hatfield and McCoy one. This was, used to be called the Dixie Stampede, I believe is what it was, what is, what is that what it's called now or is that what it used to call? It used to be called, uh, Dali Parton's Dixie Stampede. And now it's just called Daly Parton Stampede or Dauly Stampede. Um, but it is the most visited dinner theater in the world. Um, it's incredibly successful. It's pretty fucking cool.

It's, and that's after they took down all the Confederate iconography. So that happens They took down the iconography Yes So it becomes a major controversy in 2017 Aisha Harris wrote an article for Slate Basically Pointing out that it's basically

Civil War medieval times They restaged battles between the north and south With audiences cheering for both sides Nobody mentioned slavery At a Branson Missouri location The building is designed to look like a plantation and there's also like a, the bathrooms are segregated

for Southerners only and Northerners only. Wow. So it's, it wasn't great. Playing with that Jim Crow shit? Exactly. It's like, just between north and south, you know,

not raised. To be fair, like Pigeon Forge is literally like, take the worst parts of Florida that you've ever imagined and take like the shittiest part of Las Vegas and then like put all of those people together. Like that's kind of what like it's like Pigeon Forge. It's just terrible people from the South visit.

It's like the people there are not, it's not people that live there. People that live there are great, but like the tourist influx is a, ooh, it's a little rough. Okay. So after that article, she does listen. She changes the name. She takes out a lot of the Civil War.

it changed the name to Dali Parton's stampede. The North still fights the South, but in pig races and chicken catching contests and the overt references to war are removed, the colors of their uniforms are changed so that Northerners wear red and the South War blue. And then around Christmas, it's like between red and green.

And honestly, I've gone. There's not even a lot of that like sides cheering. Like for the most part, it's a horse show. Right. It's just people doing really cool shit on horses, like jumping through hoops on fire and barrel racing and all that stuff. And then they have these little tiny like, let's race these pigs. Who wants this pig to win? Right, right.

They don't really mention any of that. And then like the meal they serve you is crazy. Like it starts with bread rolls. Then they bring you this like milky, like corn chowdery vegetable soup thing. Then they bring you a whole chicken. Hell yeah and slices of pork loin if you'd like that in addition to your chicken

then a whole baked potato then like a pile of vegetables or a salad I forget and then at the end it's like apple crisp like there it's so much food like I didn't I didn't even take the pork like I barely I was like I am wasting

so much food like Jesus Christ yeah you like you gave my four year old a whole chicken yeah we were like can we just split one yeah it's like literally a whole chicken you're like sick I'll eat this

Old chicken? I'll eat the leg. Okay, cool, cool, cool. She said about this controversy as soon as you realize that something is a problem, you should fix it, don't be a dumbass. That's where my heart is. I would never dream of hurting anybody on purpose. She is very involved in philanthropy,

mentioned that she donated a million dollars to vaccine research right when people started doing that. And they credit her with being very helpful. she's indirectly connected to one of the most headline grabbing moments in scientific history with Dolly the Sheep and there's just like

boob jokes about her all the time and like you see her go on talk shows back in the day and fucking Johnny Carson's like I'd give a weak salary to get a look under there and like she just has the best

she has the best boob jokes though she's like her I think the best one was she was like I burned my bra once and it took the fire department like three weeks to put out the fire. Pretty solid. But like in the case of the Dolly thing, she told the press that she was flattered that the clone was named after her. So she just is kind of like, yeah, fuck it.

You know? He's like, yeah, okay, one of the most famous scientific breakthroughs is named after me. Oh, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Love that for the brain. Not only did she donate to the vaccine. She was one of the first people to get vaccine on camera, singing a new version of Jolene with the lyrics vaccine. Vaccine, I'm begging of you. Please don't hesitate because once you're dead, then it's a bit

too late. Also donated millions to AIDS research. Her imagination library charity has distributed more than 100 million books to children across the world, motivated by her dad, who was the smartest person she ever met and illiterate. God, so she really missed with that TV career. Yeah. And even, I mean, she launched on the Porter Wagner show, which was a TV, TV show and had some great small moments on TV, but like didn't really, and Hannah Montana, you know, broke her to a new generation. But that's why I think it's important that we stop and we acknowledge, well then if she didn't make TV money, she made some movie money, how did she make all this money? Right. And that's why we need to point back to the best business decision she ever

made that many musicians do not, and particularly women in her era and songwriters in her era, this woman fought for and retained the entirety of her publishing rights for the entirety of her career. Yeah, yeah. That is so huge. And not to give like a mini like dissertation on how royalties work, but like basically, you know, there's several parts of that pie. And most performers receive a quarter of that pie because they're just performing the song. And that's it. On the other hand, Dahlia has composed the song.

Dahlia has written the lyrics. Dahlia has performed the lyrics and Dali has recorded it. So that bitch gets paid on all four sides of her record. which is how she has made money and not selling her songs or giving away publishing rights to people like Elvis Presley on her biggest songs. Two, Whitney Houston didn't get publishing on that song and Whitney Houston still did just fine. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah.

So that's her. But she's doing, she's killing it off that Whitney Houston song to this day. Yeah. Killing and just making so much money. And she's, I think, one of the unique examples of truly wealthy people that should be a billionaire that are not because. they give back. You didn't even talk about the amount of like local level sort of support that she's given. She has a lot of stuff that she has given to local people. Like every time there is a tragedy here, this woman literally pays people. She was paying people families, I think upwards of

$4,000 a month during fires when the first round of fires that plays to the Appalachians. She also has a thing in Severeville that if you are a resident of Severeville and you graduate high school, she was giving kids $300 if you just like sent her your thing that you graduated college. I mean, graduated high school. Like, she has low-level incentives that are just for people that live in the area that she was, like, raised in. And, like, the dedication to that that is pretty remarkable. And obviously, Dollywood makes a shit ton of money. It's not the only, like, a resort that she has. She has a whole universe of resorts and attractions that are in Pigeon Forge now that people go through, that she provides employment benefits. If you work for her at

Hollywood. Yeah, she treats her employees really well at Hollywood. She will put you through She'll put you through college. Yeah. For working at an amusement park. Yeah. Such a just good, just such a good lesson. I think generally not even if you're a celebrity of like, it really matters what you put out in the world.

Yes. You know, because that it can come back. Like you really need to think of like what your output is into the world. Because if you're very generous and giving with that, like not to say you're going to be Dolly Parton, but not only will you feel better, but chances are you're going to build enough goodwill with other people

in your community or whatever that people are all going to have your back. Yeah. And how you define wealth is your own personal thing. You know what I mean? Like I consider myself very wealthy, but like I'm not Dolly Parton Rich. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I've spent time enriching my life and trying to give back and I feel wealthy and like

the relationships and the friendships and like everything that I have and that is so meaningful. And that's one of the biggest things I take away from watching her is like, how can I downplay this? How can I make a mini version of this for my life? Do you think you would be a shitty person if you didn't go to that concert and didn't have your head, like your mind totally blown by seeing Dolly Parton? Like, and you would have just be like, I don't know. Honestly. Yeah. Yes. I do. Like, I was a wild piece of shit. And like, it took me a while to figure things out. And like, I was before I started comedy. I was in a very, like, intense career. It's like I worked for a record label. I was in the music business. Like, I was being taught to be ruthless. And the only thing that mattered was my job. And like, shit. truly did teach me balance. You know what I mean? And then me being like, oh, I can be creative and be a business person at the same time and like gave me the like passion to follow my own

passion and then also realizing, oh, I can't also just only do comedy and not think about my family and friends and not have time for myself. Like honestly, like she taught me balance. She taught me perseverance. She taught me also taking risks and not being afraid to take risks because if you fail, who cares? You can be broke anywhere. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She absolutely did. I think I would a thousand percent be a shitty person if I didn't have Dolly Parton and her light in my life. Totally right. So this is a question I haven't asked any of our guests before, but I'm going to ask you because you know more about this than me.

What's the biggest thing that I've missed? Is there one thing that we haven't talked about from her life that like we need to tell the listeners about? Yeah. I mean, I think we should also talk. We've kind of danced around it, but I think we should also talk about. femininity and fashion. You know, she is someone that never let anybody shape what she looked like in that fashion, right?

Like, nobody dresses like Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton dresses like Dolly Parton. And then when you see people, you're like, oh, that reminds me of Dolly Parton. But, like, she has a very specific style in fashion road that she has driven down. And all of her clothes and all of her shoes, I mean, she's the only artist that I know that has, like, a full-time archivist and has whole museums dedicated to just her clothing. Right. She wrote a whole book about her fashion.

She said she has a wig for every day of the year. They have a whole wig display now at Dollywood that is like my favorite thing because they change the weeks out seasonally. So I love going to see the new wigs. I'm like, ooh, the new wigs. All of her shoes are custom made. All of her dresses there. Her best friend Judy Ogle started saving all of her clothes very early on.

because Dolly didn't think twice about it because Dolly's just doing Dolly, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm so glad that Judy locked in because now we have this huge amass of all of these clothes that we wouldn't have, you know, that people made that are dead. People have passed away, the people have, you know, not known. And she didn't always go with a super famous designer. She's always worked with like independent, really strong seamstresses. So I think it's also important that like Dolly created herself not off of the back of designer clothing, right? Right, right, right, right, yeah.

Would Cardi B be Cardi B without designers? You know what I mean? Like everything now is like, oh, it's Balenciaga, it's custom this. Like, dolly shit, you don't know who Stephen Summers is unless you are a Dolly Parton fan. And then you're like, oh, that's a Steve Summers dress. He designed that, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't know the people, her beer, you know, all this.

Like, I know the people who make her clothes because I'm obsessed with this shit. And now her great niece, like her niece is running this and putting this all up. And this, you know, woman has grown up in, you know, this is her aunt. Can you even imagine like your aunt being Dolly Parton? Get out of here, you know? Right. But she's the same reverence that we do because. because she understands how difficult it is as a woman to like hold on to like an artistic vibe for the entirety of your career.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Oh, that was Madonna's leather era. Oh, that was Madonna's this. Like Dolly Parton has been consistent since the beginning, which is like, is it fucking sparkly? Does it have a fringe? Like, is my hair big as fuck? Check. Or my shoes high as fuck.

Like, is it fucking rhinestone? No, send it back. You know what I'm saying? Like everything is custom made. I even love the fact that when she did fucking goddamn, what was the movie with Queen Latifah where they were, she was in, straight talk or no, no, no, no, no, higher

something, something. That's, it's, that's gonna, it's, that's gonna drive me crazy. But even her choir gown. Joyful noise. Joyful noise, yes. Joyful noise, yeah, yeah, yeah. She has a fitted choir gown. It's not that big guys, don't be choir gown.

Like, you know, after that movie came out, there was church ladies that were like, I'm taking my shit in. You know what I mean? You know I'm going to look good. Like when Mariah wore the Michael Jordan jersey dress to sing the national anthem at the All-Star game, people were like, hold on, you can do that with a basketball jersey. Yeah. Like I know there was church ladies running into Taylor's that Monday morning like, hey, take my shit in.

Yeah, she's like, I got to let them know. Okay. From the pulpit. Yeah. You know what I mean? I look good. You can't hide it. She has consistently employed her family, which can be like such a recipe for desks.

for disaster, but like she, and like there has been like difficulties where like her aunt was feeding rumors and like her sister just got messy with it and was like pray for my sister. She's just like, oh, I didn't mean anything by it. She's fine. I was just, yeah. Well, and that's also like, I mean, that lady's old. You know what I mean? Imagine, I don't know about you guys, but my mom wows on on Facebook and doesn't realize it. Yeah, exactly. Just like that's all three it was doing was just like. You can't talk about Dolly like that without the world freaking out. But just the, the fact that like she has created this like massive family empire and is like doing succession, but like with kindness.

It's like fucking crazy, you know? And all of her family is like beautiful and lovely. Like since I've lived out in here in Nashville, I've really gotten lucky and like have met like quite a few of her like younger relatives that are around my age just from like being in places that I'm at and like people just talking to me and being like, oh, I see you all the time. You seem normal. Are you normal? And I'm like, yes, I am very normal.

Also, very obsessed. And they're like, yeah, me too. I can't believe I'm related to this lady. You know, and they all are supported. Like, everyone has great stories. Like, everyone is employed or not employed or has gotten some help or something in some way, but it's never expected. Like, it is beautiful to see that, that she's not only pouring into her immediate family,

but like into her community and younger generations. And she's teaching her family members how to continue that same vibe, right? Yeah. And it's just, and now her big thing that she's coming out with is like, all I want to do for the rest of my life is literally bring joy and happiness to people. that's it. What an altruistic statement. She's doing a pretty good job to say.

I think so too. So far, I'd say pretty good. Work in progress, but pretty good work so far. I've got my eye on you, Dolly. Lydia Popovich, such a pleasure having you on all episodes of our show, but especially this one. Where can people find you, follow you all that good stuff? Certainly.

You can find me on the interwebs. Lydiapopovich.com is my website. Hater Tuesday on all of the socials is where you can find me. I am based in Nashville, but I tour all over the place. But if you're in Nashville, you can always catch me at Zanis. I pop in there pretty frequently. Got different shows. One exciting thing that I have booked that I think you will be excited about Miles.

I will be opening for our friend, Sarper Govan, from 90-day Beyonce fame. Sarper, you know, Sophia went to go see Sarper perform. It's the gig of the year so far. Like, I couldn't be more excited to be booked as that man's opener. It's a two-man show, just me and him. It's a two-hap? What the fuck? Yeah.

Jack, Sarper is a dude who, he's like a 90-day fiancee Casmar, this Turkish guy who's just like, she's like, what do you want to do in your America? He's like, maybe I'll be a stand-up and just fucking went for it.

And he's not that funny, but he just, everyone's so interested in him that he's selling out these, he's doing like a whole stand-up tour. And like, okay. Wow. Is he doing material or he's just getting up there being starper? Oh, yeah.

Oh, he's got material. He's got material. He definitely has much. material. So yeah, look out for that. I think that's either in February or March. I can't remember I'm going to be putting on my website. I just confirmed that earlier this week and couldn't be more thrilled. You were one of the first people I thought about Miles. I was like, oh my God, can't wait to tell Miles. He's going to get it. He's going to know how exciting this is. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But yeah, come see me. Do some stand-up. I do have jokes about Dolly Parton and all kinds of other stuff.

But yeah, and if you see me in the streets or you see me at Hollywood, I will be there opening day probably at the front of the line. There's video footage of me last year running through. Rope dropping. Rope dropping. Hell yeah. Got a rope drop down the world. Every year. All right. Miles, where can people find you? Checking out talking 90 day fiancee on 420 day fiancee talking to Sarpur, whatever, everything that's happening over there. And also A-Nit-Footy talking about soccer. All of it. Come join us. And you know already daily Zayk guys, you already know. All right. That is going to do it for this part of the conversation, stick around for after the break because I never remember to get to everything I wanted to say in the conversation for my notebook dump.

So be back in five minutes. Bye. Bye. New year, new goals. And in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast.

And every week, we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology.

Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune, and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP, might actually work.

This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A new year doesn't mean erasing who you were. It means honoring what you've survived and choosing how you want to grow. It means giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay. to ask for help. I'm Mike Dalarocha, host of sacred lessons. This podcast is a space for men to talk openly about mental health, grief, relationships, and the patterns we inherit, but don't have to repeat. Here, we slow down, we listen, we learn how vulnerability becomes strength, and how healing

happens in community, not in isolation. If you're ready to let go of what no longer serves you, and step into the year with clarity, compassion, and purpose. Sacred Lessons is your companion on your healing journey. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delarocha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Deloosa and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today. Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January guys everywhere make the same resolutions. Get stronger. hard or fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year,

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All right, that was our Dolly Parton conversation. Thanks to Jay Mn McNabb for providing the research. And thanks to Lydia, of course, for providing a lifelong. devotion to Dolly Parton Studies. A few things I didn't get to. That's right. It's time for the No, No, No, No, No Notebook Dump. We're going to do a couple unprecedented things in this edition of the No, No, No, No notebook dump.

First, there's something I forgot from a previous episode. I'm going to No, no, no, notebook dump something from Elvis here because I learned about it after the Elvis episode dropped. I've since learned listening to actually just randomly a Conan O'Brien. needs a friend, live episode with John C. Riley a few years back. It was recorded a few years back. That Elvis had a chimp named Scatter.

This is a significant omission that I have to apologize for significant for a number of reasons. One was just a point that I think I did mention in the episode was how similar Elvis and Michael Jackson's some aspects of their lives were. and that they both created these universes, Graceland, Neverland, where they were surrounded by enablers.

They both died from medical enablers, basically physician malpractice by way of, holy shit, it's Elvis. And when you get to that level of weird fame, like I think those two human beings, Elvis and Michael Jackson, lived arguably two of the strangest lives, had two of the strangest human experiences in the history of the species,

like being that famous. I feel like we should kind of study them, like psychiatrists or neurologist study Phineas Gage, the guy who survived getting a railroad spike through his head, and they're like, well, this is a weird thing. And so now we can learn things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to. Their lives, Michael Jackson and Elvis, was like this vast psychological experiment. And what we found in both cases is that when you are in those strange alien worlds where

nobody is being real with you and you're just surrounded in your own castle of your own, your own design, at a certain point, you're just like, I got to get a chimp. I got, I got, I need a chimp in here with me. And, you know, Michael Jackson's was much more famous, at least in my lifetime. Elvis's was named Scatter. They named it that after how people would react when he showed up because he was a bit of a live wire, a bit of a wild card. He would reach up people's skirts and just make people very uncomfortable one time.

Elvis and the Memphis Mafia were in L.A., and they found a car. or created a car with a fake steering wheel so they could drive around Beverly Hills making it look like Scatter was driving the car and just like freaking out the people of Beverly Hills. And a very sad story, he ultimately was left in the backyard in a cage when it was too cold and he froze to death.

Anyways, it was too good, the omission, too unforgivable, had to bring it back here. And that's something that I'm comfortable doing. If I miss something on an episode that needs to be rectified, let me know. I will bring it back in the notebook dump in subsequent episodes. On to Dolly Parton, just in terms of her being a tabloid queen, there's been a number of conspiracy theories about her over the year. One, suggesting that she's secretly covered in tattoos.

This one was very fascinating to me in the early days of crapped. I was like, this was my white whale. can we find we find out if this is true. The idea she's almost never seen wearing short sleeves. And she has admitted that she has a few little tattoos here and there, mostly to cover up scars from surgeries, but she says she's not tattooed up like a motorcycle girl. So that is the adorable Dolly Parton way of putting it. Other conspiracy theories in tabloid queendom, she hasn't been able to totally outrun the initial

a boob joke that made her famous. There's numerous rumors that she either had her breasts insured or that they're so heavy that they've caused her to be bedridden and crippled for life, which she's obviously denied. And I will just say during the course of the research for the Dalli Parton episode, I've never seen anyone who is less bedridden. I think she's actually one of these people whose success can be partially explained by needing less sleep, as I mentioned in the episode, but she wakes up at 3 a.m. every morning. Like Donald Trump is another one of these people who needs less sleep. But unlike Trump,

she appears to be vibrating with energy at all times. She seems to be powered by a hummingbird heart. She sleeps so little that she sleeps in her makeup has a wig rack with, as I mentioned, she owns like a different wig for every day of the year. And I like to imagine that she just sprints out of bed through a closet and the wig and the clothes are just on her when she gets out the other side, like a cartoon character who accidentally gets dressed up like a lady by running through a woman's closet. We talked about people trying to cancel her, getting mad at her. Another anecdote about someone who came at the queen and missed. Uh, 2024, the federalist attacked Parton for condoning immoral sexual behavior and it didn't go well

from a Yahoo News article from later that week a federalist writer Erica Anderson criticized Parton for her non-judgmental approach to life and her claim that she loves everyone those are controversial opinions I can see why Erica would object to those statements

is she a five-year-old boy in the year 1985 being like, ooh, you love everyone? Yeah, the thing I a Christian object to is her non-judgmental approach to life. But that was the thesis of her article. And like I said, within a week, she was out here being like, I regret using Dolly as the example of the point I was making in the article. As I wrote in the piece, I love her and think she does some incredible things for the world. We all make poor choices and how to frame things sometimes. Yeah, you made your whole

article about criticizing Dolly Parton as she closed her statement within a week that she issued about her. article, the world is lucky to have her. And finally, I said I do a couple unprecedented things in this no, no, no, no, notebook dump. First, we gave you an Elvis, a previous episode, notebook dump. We're also, we've got a notebook dump from guest Lydia Popovich, who wanted to point out that we missed out on the importance of Dolly to the fine art of branding. Lydia, take it away. Hey guys, I was just making dinner, making chili, and I'm making cornbread using my Dolly Parton Times Lodge collaboration, cast iron butterfly molds. And it occurred to me, oh my God, we did forget something. We totally forgot to talk about Dolly the brand.

This woman has branded herself. A lot of people love to give credit to Kiss, who did a wonderful job of marketing themselves in the 70s and the 80s, you know, from Kiss lunchboxes to posters to dolls, everything, right? But that's pretty limited in comparison to what Dolly Parton has done. Dolly Parton has branded herself since the 80s. All right. Good point from Liddy. I remember reading a lot of glowing reviews on Kiss's ability to sell out during, I don't know, I think the Obama administration or something. People were like, man, they were really good at marketing themselves. you know generally I'm not the biggest fan of selling out but when you're putting your name on products that make people happy and using the money that you make from that branding to like put people through college and give poor children books to read I'll allow it dolly I'll allow it um all right that's gonna do it for this week's iconograph uh we are back next week with another very fun episode uh that talks about the final are points of selling out. We're talking about the Michael Jordan meets Evil Knievel,

meets Johnny Appleseed of skateboarding. We're talking about the Hawkman Tony Hawk with Mortberg. That'll be next week's iconograph, and we will talk to you all done. Have a great week. Bye. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape. We've got your back. Prices. They're still. still high and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to how to money on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken? But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist, Dr. Steve Poulter, to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.

Part of the way through the Valley of despair is realizing this has happened, and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to the Mailroom. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

A new year doesn't ask us to become someone new. It invites us back home to ourselves. I'm Mike Delarocha, a host of Sacred Lessons, a space for men to pause, reflect, and heal. This year, we're talking honestly about mental health, relationships, and the patterns we're ready to release. If you're looking for clarity, connection, and healthier ways to show up in your life,

Sacred Lessons is here for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike. Mike Della Roach on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed Human.