Fans throughout the world are mourning the late, great Dolly Parton after her tragic passing at age 80.
In remembering Parton, those fans are returning to the rich treasure trove of music she left behind.
As it happens, though, there will be more music to come — a lot more, thanks to a plan that Parton put in place before her passing to ensure that a steady stream of her never-before-heard songs will continue to be released long after she’s gone.
A Time Capsule Song
As People reports, the late country music legend had discussed this scheme on numerous occasions, but it’s only now after her loss that attention is being drawn to her expansive vault of unreleased music.
In 2015, she wrote a song titled “My Place in History,” which she sealed in a time capsule with instructions that it not be released until 2046, on the date of what would have been her 100th birthday.
In 2022, she appeared on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” and admitted that it “drove her crazy” that the song wouldn’t be heard for another 20-plus years.
“You have no idea how that has bothered me,” she said at the time. “I wanna go dig that up so bad… It’s a really good song!… I figure it’ll probably disintegrate and nobody will ever hear it. That’s what bothers me, if it rots in there before they open it.”
Thousands of Songs
GettyHowever, she also revealed that there were many more songs in her vault in addition to that one.
In a 2019 edition of her “Dolly Parton’s America” podcast, she noted that she’d amassed “thousands” of songs that she hadn’t yet released, which had not been heard by the public.
“There’s enough stuff to go on forever with my music to do compilation albums, to do actually new and original stuff,” she said, via People.
This, she explained, wasn’t just because she had a backlog of unreleased material, but had actually been by design.
“I am purposely trying to put songs down for that very purpose, to have a click track and my vocals to where any arrangement can be done,” she added.
New Music for 50 Years
GettyAsked if she had compiled enough songs in her archives so that new music could continually be released for the the next 50 years, Parton said she believed that she had.
“Any producer anywhere in the world, a hot producer, when I’m gone, they could take my songs, just the click track of my vocal, and build a complete arrangement around that,” she detailed.
“Any style, anything that we do,” she said, explaining how those pre-existing songs were ready for modern arrangements to be added. “So that will go on forever.”
As she pointed out, seeing the posthumous chaos that befell the estates of some other recording artists, she felt it was necessary to “be prepared” when her time finally came.
“I don’t want to ever leave my stuff in the same shape like Prince or Aretha [Franklin], or anybody that don’t plan ahead with that,” she added.
