In about 20 years, the world will be treated to another Dolly Parton original.
The late country music legend wrote and recorded a secret song called “My Place in History,” which was burned on a CD and sealed inside a “Dream Box” time capsule assembled for the opening of Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort in 2015. The mystery box, which is displayed at the resort, is scheduled to be opened on January 19, 2046, what would have been Parton’s 100th birthday.
Parton discussed the time capsule years ago during an appearance on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” admitting that she had a hard time resisting the temptation to retrieve the song and share it with the world.
“I’ll tell you, you have no idea how that has bothered me,” the “Jolene” singer told Clarkson. “I mean, I wanna go dig that up so bad … I need to use that song! It’s a really good song.”
Parton even worried that the recording might not survive long enough for anyone to hear it.
“That’s what bothers me to think that it’s going to be a song that nobody’s ever going to hear if it rots in there before they open it,” she said. “Hopefully, it’ll be special and it’ll still be there,” she went on.
“I won’t be around to hear it,” she predicted.
Parton joked about that possibility during an appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon that same year.
“I’ll be dead and gone — well I might not be, ’cause I’ll be 99,” Parton said. “You know me, I might still be hoppin’ around.”
The Dream Box contains other items representing Parton’s life and career, but its biggest mystery is the unheard song she left for the future.
Parton died Tuesday following a “brief battle with cancer,” her representatives revealed after her death was announced. Fans gathered outside her Nashville home to mourn the loss of one of country music’s most beloved stars.
The Tennessee-born singer was hospitalized on Friday and died four days later at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville.
Her nephew, Bryan Seaver, confirmed her death in an Instagram video.
“But sadness lies with us, not with Dolly. Dolly has lived in the light, and is in the arms of Jesus,” Seaver said in part.
Parton was born in a one-room East Tennessee cabin on Locust Ridge as the fourth of 12 kids. She recorded her first single, “Puppy Love,” at age 13 and left for Nashville the very morning after graduating high school in 1964, packing her belongings in paper grocery bags.
She’s best known for writing iconic hit songs including “I Will Always Love You,” “9 to 5,” and “Jolene.”
Across her six-decade career, she penned more than 3,000 songs, scored 25 country No. 1 singles, won 11 Grammys, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
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