The Story of How Dolly Parton's 'I Will Always Love You' Came to Be

Dolly Parton grew up dirt-poor to a loving family in the mountains of Tennessee in a place called Locust Ridge. Whitney Houston grew up well-to-do in New Jersey's biggest city, Newark, the child of musical royalty. Her mother, Cissy, was a Grammy-winning gospel artist, her first cousin was Dionne Warwick, and her distant cousin was opera legend Leontyne Price.

The two could not have come from more different backgrounds, but one of pop music's greatest love songs, "I Will Always Love You," brought them together. How that happened, and how the song came to be, is a remarkable story, one that includes Elvis Presley and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker; actor Kevin Costner; and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The song, written and recorded by Parton in 1973, was not about the loss of a romantic love. It was instead written about the end of a long-standing professional relationship. Porter Wagoner, a country star well-known for his gaudy attire and coiffed hair, gave Parton her big break in show businesses, signing her to a long-term deal on his nationally syndicated musical variety show. The two enjoyed great success performing and singing together, creating a succession of country hits.

But as time passed, Parton wanted her freedom, creatively and financially. She wanted to leave the man who'd done so much for her career, but how could she do it with grace and gratitude?

"We were going around and around with that," Parton told The Tennessean in 2015 about ending her partnership with Wagoner. "So, finally, I thought, How am I gonna make him understand how much I appreciate everything, but that I have to go? He won't listen to me. He's not listening to the reason why I want to go!

"So I went home and I thought, Well, what do you do best? You write songs. So I sat down, and out of a very emotional place I wrote this song."

How did Wagoner react? "He said, 'It's the best thing you ever wrote,'" Parton recalled in Ken Burns' documentary Country Music. "'OK, you can go, but only if I can produce that record.' And he did and the rest is history."

"I Will Always Love You" made its way to No. 1 on the country charts in 1974 along with another song Parton penned on the same day she wrote her farewell to her former boss, "Jolene." The songs established her as one of country music's best performing artists and one of Nashville's finest songwriters too.

And that's where Presley comes into the story. Parton's hit song had come to the rock legend's attention through his manager, Parker. "[Elvis] loved the song and wanted to do it," Parton told BBC Radio. "Had it worked up. They'd already called me to come down to the studio and to hear part of the song."

But the Presley cover of Parton's love song would never come to be. The night before the recording was to take place, Parker told Parton that he didn't allow Presley to record anything without half of the publishing rights.

"I said, 'I'm sorry, but I can't give you the publishing,'" Parton told W magazine. "I wanted to hear Elvis sing it, and it broke my heart—I cried all night. But I had to keep that copyright in my pocket. You have to take care of your business."

Parton, it turned out, wasn't just a great singer and songwriter; she was also a shrewd businesswoman. She understood the value of her intellectual property and wasn't about to give it away, even to the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

How did one of R&B's greatest divas come to perform Parton's country ballad? It turns out that Costner, one of America's most famous actors at the time, loved the song and happened to be producing a 1992 movie called The Bodyguard, in which he co-starred with Houston. He called Parton and asked if he could use the song in the movie's soundtrack. She quickly said yes but never heard back about how it would be used in the movie—or if it would be used.

"I didn't know if they had it, I didn't know if they had done it," she told Kelly Clarkson on Clarkson's syndicated TV show.

Parton first heard the song the way millions of Americans did—while driving in her car around town. "I was just driving along, and I had the radio on," she said. "When I heard it, I just freaked out. I had to pull over to the side because I honestly thought that I was gonna wreck. It was the most overwhelming feeling."

America—and the world—was overwhelmed too. The song catapulted to the top of the Billboard charts and stayed there for an astonishing 14 weeks, a record at the time. The song stayed on the top of the U.K. charts for 10 weeks and would go on to sell over 20 million copies worldwide.

Parton's decision to keep her publishing rights and say no to Parker and Presley was one of the best business decisions of her life. "I made enough money to buy Graceland," Parton told a reporter about the royalties she earned from Houston's cover.

Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You" became—and still is—the bestselling single ever recorded by a female artist. Parton still holds the record for the bestselling single ever written by a female artist.

It's a quintessentially American story, the story of "I Will Always Love You." A talented white woman from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee wrote a song that a brilliant black female singer from urban New Jersey brought to the world in ways no one could plan, let alone imagine.

There was no talk of cultural appropriation, by Parton or Houston or anyone else. The two women were doing what musical artists in America have done from the beginning of time: borrow any and all forms of music and make it their own. Thanks to the miracle of free enterprise and intellectual property rights, musical artists in America are not merely protected against the theft of their work but also incentivized to share their work—their songs—with others, across race, class, culture, geography and time.

Many artists would go on to cover the song, including Linda Ronstadt and LeAnn Rimes. One Middle East dictator loved the song so much he commissioned Syrian pop star Mayyada Bselees to cover it in Arabic and used it as his official campaign song in 2002. That was Saddam Hussein, who won the Iraqi "election" in typical dictatorial style with 100 percent of the votes but didn't live to the end of his seven-year term.

Which version of the song is the best? That's not for this writer to answer. But one thing is certain: the Houston cover of "I Will Always Love You" changed the life of the writer—and the singer—forever, making both of them a small fortune. And the world a better and more beautiful place.