Dolly Parton, de facto Queen of Appalachia, Patron Saint of All Things Glamorous and Giggly, died on August 25, 2026, after a brief battle with cancer. She was 80 years old. Celebrations of Dolly Parton’s life will undoubtedly center around her stunning musical legacy. And her funeral will certainly be no exception.
Twelve years before her passing, in a 2014 interview with Entertainment Weekly, a 68-year-old Parton revealed what music she might like to have at her funeral. She started her answer with the obvious. Some original songs of hers, like “I Will Always Love You”, would be unavoidable when her time came.
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“I’m sure they’ll be playing ‘I Will Always Love You’ when I die,” Parton said. “Just like they did with Whitney Houston.” Houston covered Parton’s 1973 track for the soundtrack of the 1992 film The Bodyguard, the latter version becoming a major, career-defining hit for Houston. “When they picked her coffin up and started in on that song, I started to cry. I thought, ‘Oh my Lord.’ That’s when it hit me that she was really gone.”
Dolly Parton Wants This Gospel Song With a Family Connection Sung at Her Funeral
Of course, anyone who knows Dolly Parton knows that she wouldn’t be the kind of singer-songwriter to stack her funeral program with original songs. The fact that “I Will Always Love You” would be a shoo-in for her own memorial service was an inevitability. Parton knew that from a business and cultural perspective. However, she told Entertainment Weekly that the song she actually requested for her funeral was a traditional gospel tune.
“There’s a song called ‘If We Never Meet Again’. It’s an old country-gospl church song that talks about if we never meet again this side of heaven, I will meet you on that beautiful shore. ‘Where the charming roses bloom forever, and where separations come no more.’ That was my daddy’s favorite. We did sing it at his funeral, and I would like it to be sung at mine.”
Parton was preceded in death by her father, Robert Lee Parton, Sr., her mother, Avie Lee Caroline Owens, and her husband, Carl Dean, who passed away in 2025. Needless to say, Parton had plenty of people she was ready to meet where the charming roses bloom forever. Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, one can only assume Parton is reunited with her family somewhere. They’re almost certainly singing together, definitely cutting up with one another, and enjoying a land where separations come no more.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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