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Here’s 11 Surprising Songs That Dolly Parton Wrote For Other Artists

The Queen of Country has plenty of number-one songs with her name on it, but I bet you didn’t know about these 11 songs that Dolly wrote for other artists!…

dolly parton

(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

The Queen of Country has plenty of number-one songs with her name on it, but I bet you didn't know about these 11 songs that Dolly wrote for other artists! The Queen herself has estimated that she has written close to 3,000 songs over the past seven decades. Of them, over 450 have been recorded!

If you ask 10 people, only a couple of them would know that Dolly wrote the iconic hit, "I Will Always Love You." Sound familiar? Of course it does! Whitney Houston sung the song in the movie The Bodyguard.

People forget that that song was written as a goodbye song for Dolly's television counterpart, Porter Wagoner. Dolly and Porter worked together for seven years on "The Porter Wagoner Show," but Dolly had bigger dreams. She wanted to venture out on her own and create her own musical path. Porter didn't want Dolly to leave the show, but after she wrote and sang her song, "I Will Always Love You," he had no choice! I would say, the rest is history, wouldn't you?

"I love to write songs for men," Parton says in her 2020 book, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. "And it's a good thing I do because back then, there weren't that many women in the country-music business to write songs for. Especially ones who weren't writing their own songs, like Loretta Lynn was. I didn't have a lot of space to write songs for women so I purposefully tried to write songs that men could record. Or songs that could go either way."

Check out these 11 songs written by Dolly Parton for other artists, including her Goddaughter, Miley Cyrus!

"I Will Always Love You" - Whitney Houston

"Fuel to the Flame" - Skeeter Davis

"There'll Always Be Music" - Tina Turner

"Circle of Love" - Jennifer Nettles

"Waltz Me to Heaven" - Waylon Jennings

"To Daddy" - Emmalou Harris

"The Stranger" - Kenny Rogers

"I'm In No Condition" - Hank Williams Jr.

"Kentucky Gambler" - Merle Haggard

"Put It Off Until Tomorrow" - Bill Philips

"Rainbowland" - Miley Cyrus

Ayla Brown has been an on-air morning show host with Country 102.5 since 2018. Before taking this once-in-a-lifetime job, Ayla was (and still is) a country music singer. In 2006, she placed 13th on American Idol. In 2012 and 2013 she celebrated her Grand Ole Opry and Ryman Auditorium debut, and over the years she has visited 13 countries overseas to sing for the American Troops. Country music is in Ayla Brown’s soul. Not only does she sing it, but she gets to talk about it every day on “Country Mornings with Jonathan and Ayla.” Ayla is happily married to singer-songwriter, Rob Bellamy, and they welcomed a son named Barrett in August of 2022. In her free time, she loves to sew baby bibs and experiment with new recipes in the kitchen. She also loves to travel and try new foods. Ayla writes about Boston area happenings, parenting, holistic lifestyle and living, and travel.