I had a much dumber post prepared for today. It’s been rescheduled because I’m legitimately upset about the death of Dolly Parton. I know that all things must come to an end and that includes people’s lives but the world is a little bit dimmer because of it. I could go on about how thinking like this is parasocial as well but I would prefer to just sit with my sadness and see what it makes me feel.

There were many things that I admired about her, the first was that she accepted in many ways that she was a bit ridiculous. She called herself an eyesore instead of a fashion icon. As someone who always grew up weird and struggled to find acceptance, seeing her just doing her own thing always made me feel a bit better.

But beyond that, there was the kindness she showed. This is one of my favorite tweets about her:

It makes me wonder how many musicians were born from her charity. We already saw that one of the greats of our generation, Lil Nas X was covering her music and she was showing support for him as well.

Here’s the performance as well. It’s incredible.

This does bring me around to how I became acquainted with Dolly in the first place. The White Stripes covered Jolene and because I was obsessed with the White Stripes I had to find out where that song came from. I had at the time, foolishly, written off Dolly Parton as a bit of a joke because I was young and edgy, read: stupid.

But then I sat down and listened to her music and realized that she like those other old school country greats, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Alison Krauss, their songs were so universal because they tapped into something deep inside of us. The melancholy and trouble with living. The pain of love found and rejected. That’s why I keep coming across artists from all walks of life covering Dolly because everything she says just resonates.

Losing someone is never a fun thing to go through. It’s an ending and it cuts you off from the possibilities of the future. But for those left behind, it gives us reason to examine those that have left and to learn from them. I for one will try to emulate her kindness, selflessness and charity. Her light might be gone, but we can try and light up the world in our own way.