Back in 1969, Dolly Parton penned some of the private and emotional songs of her profession. She described in her 1994 memoir that, whereas touring on tour, the lyrics got here to her when she had no paper to write down them down. Parton then took notice of them on the again of a dry cleansing receipt she discovered.
That track went on to change into a success when she recorded it in April 1971, because the lead single of her album of the identical identify: Coat of Many Colors.
“So with patches on my britches/And holes in both my shoes/In my coat of many colors/I hurried off to school/Just to find the others laughing/And making fun of me/In my coat of many colors/My momma made for me/And oh, I couldn’t understand it/ For I felt I was rich/And I told ’em of the love/My momma sewed in every stitch”.
The lyrics to ‘Coat of Many Colors’ are heartwarming – and Dolly defined the true story behind it on the press tour for the 2015 movie Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors.
Speaking to NBC in December of that 12 months, she shared: “it is very personal because it’s a true story about my life. It’s about a little coat that my mother made for me at a time when I really needed it and made me feel special toward it, because she told the story about Joseph”.
Dolly’s mom drew parallels to the biblical story from Genesis, the place Joseph was favoured by his father Jacob – who gifted him a particular coat, sparking jealousy amongst his brothers. They grew extra resentful after Joseph recounted goals suggesting they’d at some point bow to him.
Dolly mirrored on her mom’s intentions: “She didn’t want me to feel like I was just wearing rags, but she just wanted me to feel like someone else had a special coat”.
The track additionally narrates how the coat led to mockery from her friends: “So with patches on my britches/And holes in both my shoes/In my coat of many colors/I hurried off to school/Just to find the others laughing/And making fun of me/In my coat of many colors/My momma made for me/And oh, I couldn’t understand it/ For I felt I was rich/And I told ’em of the love/My momma sewed in every stitch”.
Jennifer Nettles, who portrays Dolly’s mom within the movie, shared: “[The coat] turns into not only a symbol of their family and the strength of their family but it also turns into, I think, a nice lesson for Dolly about compassion, bullying and diversity”.
Parton wraps up the track with a mirrored image on the importance of the coat, regardless of her friends’ mockery. “And I told ’em all the story/Momma told me while she sewed/And how my coat of many colors/Was worth more than all their clothes/But they didn’t understand it/And I tried to make them see/That one is only poor/Only if they choose to be/Now I know we had no money/But I was rich as I could be”, she writes.
After the track’s success, Dolly’s mom crafted a duplicate for show at her Chasing Rainbows Museum in Dollywood, and her musical collaborator Porter Wagoner even donated the framed dry cleansing receipt – the canvas for Parton’s songwriting – to the museum, the place it proudly hangs at present.
Further celebrating Parton’s timeless tune, Harpercollins Children’s Books printed a 1996 image e-book impressed by the track, delivered to life with illustrations by Judith Sutton. Later, Shania Twain paid homage to it with a canopy on the 2003 tribute album Just Because I’m a Woman: Songs of Dolly Parton, amongst different artists who’ve reinterpreted this traditional tune.
The track’s significance was evidenced as soon as once more in 2022, when Brandi Carlile and Pink delivered an unforgettable efficiency throughout Parton’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – a nomination she initially declined however later accepted, in recognition of the deep roots of rock and roll in R&B and nation music.
https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/2033833/dolly-parton-opens-heartbreaking-story