Dolly Parton - Beyond Compare

She’s the dirt-poor Tennessee girl with big dreams who became a global sensation. As Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 The Musical undergoes a revival, she talks to Juliet Rieden about love, ambition and not having children.

- Juliet Rieden

There’s a fantastic opening two lines to 9 to 5, the theme tune Dolly Parton wrote for the ground-breaking 1980 comic movie which Dolly later transformed into a stage musical, that always stop me in my tracks. “Tumble outta bed and I stumble to the kitchen/ Pour myself a cup of ambition.” It’s genius!

Somehow Dolly manages to bring a gritty positivity to the battle of the sexes while also being ironic, all to a thigh-slapping beat. And as I talk to the global sensation that is Dolly Parton, I constantly catch sight of the razor-sharp mind and wry sense of humour, cloaked in those famous perky Southern vowels and big hair, that power this country music icon.

“That’s one of those lines as a songwriter when you just think, thank you, God,” Dolly explains. “When I wrote that song, I was thinking about how you’re getting up and stumbling to the kitchen because that’s what you always do to pour a cup of coffee, and then all of a sudden that line just came to me. I got so excited. It’s all about your first cup trying to wake up, whether it’s coffee or tea or cola, to get you started and motivated. And I said, ‘oh my God, a cup of ambition!’”

When she played the song on set for her co-stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, they were blown away. “Lily and I had goosebumps,” Jane has said since. “We knew it would become a huge hit and anthem.” It did. Today 9 to 5 is a feminist anthem, a term Dolly doesn’t identify with, even though she says she’s “all for women”.