With the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaching this week, Americans across the nation are finding ways to remember a tragedy beyond words. This has come in the form of stories of heroism being reshared, videos of the event being circulated, and an overall feeling that we must never forget what happened on that fateful day.
Pennsylvania native Josh Gallagher released the single &#8220;Never Forget&#8221; on digital music platforms Sept. 4 as a way of contributing to that important effort. The emotionally charged single manages to capture the feelings of the moment, offering a fitting tribute to the 2,977 victims of the terrorist attack on American soil.
The song follows the events of Sept. 11, 2001, from the first plane strike at 8:46 a.m. in Manhattan to the following crashes at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field. Gallagher will give an acoustic performance of the song during the 25th anniversary observance at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville on Friday, as local Pennsylvania outlet the Tribune-Democrat <a href="https://www.tribdem.com/news/local_news/9-11-remembered-its-an-honor-cambria-native-gallagher-releases-9-11-song-never-forget/article_61dca5e9-3404-489f-9dd4-b99a3833d57b.html">reported</a>.
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&#8220;It&#8217;s going to be a hard day for everybody, and then to sing a song like this in front of all those family members is going to be tough, but it&#8217;s an honor,&#8221; Gallagher told the outlet. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been able to do a lot of really cool things in my career and have had great experiences, but this one takes the cake. This will be the biggest honor of my career.&#8221;
The musician said the song was written to honor the brave passengers aboard Flight 93 who fought back against the terrorists, giving their lives to help prevent more deaths on that terrible day.
&#8220;Standing on that ground 25 years later and singing &#8216;Never Forget&#8217; is about as heavy and humbling as it gets,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Those 40 people stood up when it mattered. I just want this song to help keep their names, their courage, and what they did alive for the next generation.&#8221;
Gallagher now lives and works in Nashville. He gained national recognition as a finalist on the show &#8220;The Voice&#8221; in 2016. 
&#8220;We wanted to make sure this was done right because a song like this needs to be done correctly,&#8221; Gallagher said. &#8220;The second we go into the studio and the guys [started] playing it, I got the chills and was teary-eyed. If I get choked up in the studio, I know it&#8217;s good and we have something.&#8221;
There’s been a lot of discussion about how to talk to younger generations about 9/11, with a focus on conveying the feelings of that day in a way that captures what it was like to be there. Gallagher kept this personal connection in mind while writing the tribute song. 
&#8220;It hit [song co-writer Chip Minemyer and me] that we should write it in a timeline because if you ask anyone about 9/11, they will tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing,&#8221; Gallagher told the outlet. &#8220;We thought that was a cool way to write the song.”
&#8220;It&#8217;s written for everybody that day in a sense of where you got up, the sun was coming through the window, you did your morning routine and went to work, and there it was on the TV.&#8221;
&#8220;Hopefully, it inspires [younger people] to take steps to understand what happened and to appreciate the sacrifices and the heroism of the day so we all never forget,” the country singer concluded.
Josh Gallagher’s song “Never Forget” is available on all major streaming platforms including Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Josh Gallagher

Country Singer Takes On Powerful Mission 25 Years After 9/11

country music

flight 93 national memorial

josh gallagher

lifestyle

september 11 attacks

Bright Side: This One’s For The Queen Of Country Music

dolly parton

dollywood

nashville

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 <a href="https://parade.com/news/dolly-parton-my-place-in-history-locked-away-100th-birthday">sealed</a> inside a “Dream Box” time capsule assembled for the opening of Dollywood&#8217;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&#8217;s 100th birthday. 
Parton discussed the time capsule years ago during an appearance on &#8220;The Kelly Clarkson Show,&#8221; 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,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Hopefully, it’ll be special and it’ll still be there,&#8221; she went on.
&#8220;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.
&#8220;I’ll be dead and gone — well I might not be, &#8217;cause I’ll be 99,&#8221; Parton said. &#8220;You know me, I might still be hoppin’ around.”
The Dream Box contains other items representing Parton&#8217;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 &amp; Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.

Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton Left Behind A Secret Song. The World Can’t Hear It Until 2046.

arts

celebrity death

There’s a reason every Dolly Parton song feels like it finds a home in the deepest part of your soul. Writing from her heart, she set out to make a career in music. Instead, she changed the world, and she did it by always being herself.
“I never do anything that I don’t pray about,” <a href="https://www.facebook.com/reel/1296816105625461">Dolly</a> said. “I always ask God to … guide me to do things that would glorify him and to uplift mankind. That’s my mission.” 
Whether she was playing the sassy Doralee Rhodes in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbxUSsFXYo4&amp;list=RDUbxUSsFXYo4&amp;start_radio=1">9 to 5</a>” and threatening to turn a coworker “<a href="https://youtu.be/TxmtoGBeO7c?t=40">from a rooster to a hen with one shot</a>,” dishing the recipe on her cuppa cuppa cake in “<a href="https://youtu.be/2m66fBLU_fk?t=9">Steel Magnolias</a>,” belting out “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKsQR72HY0s">I Will Always Love You</a>,” or crooning over that woman “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixrje2rXLMA">Jolene</a>,” Dolly felt like one of us. Because she was. 
The fact that she could look like she did — and still relate to anyone — is the key to her magic. “My boobs are fake, my hair’s fake but what is real is my voice and my heart,” <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/glastonbury/10937329/Dolly-Parton-my-boobs-are-fake-but-my-voice-is-real-I-did-not-mime-at-Glastonbury.html">she famously said</a>. She was so wholesomely over-the-top, we couldn’t resist falling in love.
Dolly wrote more than 3,000 songs during her lifetime — if anyone was counting. “I started playing guitar when I was seven years old, and I’ve been writing serious songs ever since,” <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=451630247761543">she said</a>. “I’ve got songs stuck everywhere. I pull out a drawer to get some panties … I’ll find a song in there.” 
There’s no way to know whether she recorded them all. But from the sound of it, maybe Dolly’s run isn’t entirely over. Even her upcoming Broadway show “<a href="https://www.broadway.com/buzz/207095/dolly-partons-story-comes-to-broadway-in-dolly-a-true-original-musicaltickets-are-now-on-sale/?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=22855272851&amp;gbraid=0AAAAAD-mnJvvCyaC85cYMwQvxFiqDTotT&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjw-rTUBhAiEiwADv8gBOAMeDbME-tns0_UsSpsNTtvDBNBTip_Tgd1kKi3Iu7H5nLI7IwVGBoCE4sQAvD_BwE">DOLLY: A True Original Musical</a>” will feature new songs. Now, it looks like opening night will have to honor what would have been her 81st birthday on January 19, 2027.
You can be sure Dolly fans are gonna get through this; we have Dolly to sing all the sad songs with us. 
Along with the legendary music catalog that earned her 11 Grammys, 10 Country Music Awards, four American Music Awards, and induction into the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Songwriters halls of fame, Dolly graced the silver screen in over 12 theatrical releases, starring alongside Sylvester Stallone, Burt Reynolds, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda — in addition to her countless made-for-TV heart-warmers. 
Dolly also left her footprint behind the scenes, elevating scores of other artists’ careers. Whitney Houston leveraged Dolly’s timeless songwriting for her version of “I Will Always Love You” for the film “The Bodyguard.” And as godmother to Miley Cyrus, Dolly championed the up-and-comer by appearing in “Hannah Montana” and supporting her entry into music. 
There will never be another queen of country music. After rising from poverty to stardom living a real-life American dream, Dolly cemented her legacy over her 70-year career by paying it back to everyone she met.
Once Dolly bought <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thetasteofcountry/posts/on-this-day-in-1986-dollywood-opened-its-doors-for-the-very-first-timeparton-bou/953403557451413/">Silver Dollar City</a> in the late 1980s, the grounds were officially reopened as Dollywood. Dotted with Dolly’s signature butterflies — and regularly beating out other parks such as <a href="https://media.mypigeonforge.com/tripadvisor-users-recognize-dollywood-as-top-u-s-theme-park-2/">Disney</a>, Universal, and Legoland as a crowd favorite — the theme park continues to delight families by celebrating the bluegrass and Southern food of the Appalachians.
This was the stuff Dolly knew best. Her earliest years were spent in a one-bedroom rural Tennessee cabin in the 1940s, as the fourth-eldest of 12 children. At age six she was singing in church, and by the time she turned 13, she had co-written her first song and was introduced by Johnny Cash to perform on stage at the Grand Ole Opry. She got three encores.
&#8220;As I heard the band play my introduction, I lifted my head and looked up toward the lights,” <a href="https://dollyparton.com/life-and-career/awards_milestones/grand-ole-opry-performance-1959">Dolly</a> remembered. “I smiled at the people in the balcony and then let ‘er rip.&#8221;
After building an extraordinarily successful career, Dolly funneled a large part of her wealth back into the community, aiming to empower education through her <a href="https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-honors-dolly-parton-friend-education-award">Dollywood Foundation</a>. Her Buddy Program initiative slashed school dropout rates in her hometown of Sevier County, Tennessee, by giving “$500 to every seventh and eighth-grader who finished high school.” The buddy part involved two students pledging to get each other across the line. 
Dolly understood the power of bringing people together, whether they liked it or not. She largely flew above political discourse, preferring to stay out of the fray. All three times she was offered the greatest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom (twice from President Donald Trump, once from President Joe Biden), she declined in case it was perceived as a political choice. 
“I don&#8217;t work for those awards. It&#8217;d be nice, but I&#8217;m not sure that I even deserve it. But that&#8217;s a nice compliment for people to think that I might deserve it,&#8221; <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/dolly-parton-donald-trump-comments-president-praises-her-12366516">she said</a>.
As the nation lowered its flags to <a href="https://x.com/yashar/status/2092320365318230336?s=46">half-staff</a> in honor of the legendary star, loved ones shared Dolly’s <a href="https://youtu.be/9govup-IG3c?t=109">final wish</a> to “rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable.” It was one last playful quip from the woman famous for joking, “It takes a lot of time and money to look this cheap, honey.” 
She was light, she was love, she was country music. We’ll miss you, Dolly. “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nttKdCfEpkk">Always, Always</a>.”
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

How Dolly Parton Conquered America

broadway

tennessee

Legendary country star Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, but she made a prediction more than four decades earlier about which one of her famous &#8220;Dolly-isms&#8221; might show up on her tombstone.
In 1982, while filming &#8220;The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,&#8221; Parton coined a phrase that she would repeat on numerous occasions — so often, in fact, that she told <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/05/michael-hogan-d?srsltid=AfmBOorbIpVOaVLPIik29oUfXvLs2UDQaGIuGpzDWRvgO4xNcGwIi5GL">Vanity Fair</a> 26 years later that she expected to see it on her headstone one day.
The phrase in question? &#8220;It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.&#8221;
Parton made no secret over the years that she&#8217;d modeled her signature look after the town tramp — declaring during a number of interviews that she&#8217;d grown up in awe of this confident woman with &#8220;peroxide-blonde hair&#8221; who wore tight clothes and red lipstick. Her mother had told her at the time that the woman was &#8220;trash,&#8221; a &#8220;tramp&#8221; — but Parton said she&#8217;d known immediately that was what she wanted to be when she grew up.
&#8220;I kind of patterned myself after what they called the town tramp in my hometown, when I was little,&#8221; Parton explained to CBS anchor Julie Chen on &#8220;The Early Show&#8221; in 2006. &#8220;She left a big impression on me, and I would talk about how beautiful she was and different ones would say, ‘Oh, she’s just trash.’ And I thought, ‘That’s what I want to be when I grow up. I’m gonna be trash!’ And that is how I look.&#8221;
Parton also said her flashy outward look was an attempt to match her flashy personality.
But as flashy as she was, Parton never took herself too seriously — and routinely delivered self-deprecating quips about her flamboyant style and multiple cosmetic procedures.
&#8220;It’s hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world,&#8221; she said more than once — and she told The Guardian in 2011, &#8220;If something is bagging, sagging or dragging, I’ll tuck it, suck it or pluck it &#8230; It’s like what I always say: I may look fake but I’m real where it counts.&#8221;
When asked how she still looked so young, she quipped, &#8220;Well, good lighting, good doctors and good makeup.&#8221;
The country music icon was 80 years old.

US-ENTERTAINMENT-MUSIC-AWARD-ACM

The ‘Dollyism’ That Parton Joked Would Appear On Her Tombstone

SEE IT: The 'Dolly-ism' That Parton Said Would Show Up On Her Tombstone

In the coming days, there will be tributes and remembrances for Dolly Parton, the country music queen who comes as close to America’s version of the late Queen Elizabeth II as a person so solidly entrenched in the ethos and spirit of being, well, American that you’ll find. And with Dolly, you don’t have to look far to understand why.
Dolly Parton was as much the All-American girl as America’s girl. Her life story was straight out of the Hallmark Channel, except it was us who fell in love with her — a true-life love story. It began with a desolate upbringing in the Tennessee backwoods, then rose through the crowded Country &amp; Western music business, film, live entertainment, philanthropy, and eventually, a branded icon.
Dolly was one of the few women — maybe the only one, besides Doris Day — who walked the line between her humble wholesome image and an underlying sexiness that never ventured into the salacious. A rare feat in a world where sex doesn’t just sell; it rules.
Her (few) critics, all of whom managed to descend from their perches atop pretentious media outlets and “creative” boards, judged her on such shallow traits as her aw-shucks persona and her physical…assets, mistaking simplicity for lack of intelligence. But this was another endearing opportunity. Her humbleness and relatability disarmed the most stone-hearted, and her graceful, often haunting and deep lyrics betrayed her wisdom and a longing soul. Earlier this week, she was trending on social media when a 2014 <a href="https://www.dailymail.com/home/event/article-2611594/Dolly-Parton-Im-working-girl-I-like-waking-early-going-24-hour-supermarket-husband-An-unforgettable-audience-Dolly-Parton.html">interview</a> was revisited in which she called fellow legend Bob Dylan a “weird buckaroo.” Another “Dollyism” enters the American lexicon.
Dolly Parton was a treasure trove of golden nuggets to live and laugh by:
“If you see someone without a smile today, give &#8217;em yours.”
“It’s hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.”
“I was the first woman to burn my bra — it took the fire department four days to put it out.”
“I have little feet because nothing grows in the shade.”
&#8220;People say, &#8216;How you stay looking so young?&#8217; I say, well, good lighting, good doctors, and good makeup.”
&#8220;I&#8217;m not offended by dumb blonde jokes because I know that I&#8217;m not dumb. I also know that I&#8217;m not a blonde.&#8221;
“Above everything else I&#8217;ve done, I&#8217;ve always said I&#8217;ve had more guts than I&#8217;ve got talent.”
&#8220;I&#8217;m the little engine that did.”
“If I can hold God&#8217;s attention, I can hold the world&#8217;s.”
What was often referred to as a life of “secretism” — she and her late husband, Carl Dean, had not appeared together in public in decades — was rather that she was simply ever present. There were no thirst traps, staged photo-ops, or planted tabloid stories to drum up the spotlight. Dolly Parton never had to force her way into our lives. She never tried to be everything to everyone. You always had the feeling that what you saw — in all the bouffant, glitter, and rhinestones, manicured nails, easy lipsticked smile, and showgirl confidence — was the genuine Dolly Parton, American Girl.
She was a woman better than any feminist, a wife better than any trad, a lover better than any sexpot, a friend better than any “ally.” She could never be defined in any of the neat little boxes modernity loves to squeeze people into — she transcended them. She didn’t have to be everything to everyone; she was Dolly Parton, being herself, and that made her everything to so many people. It turns out we didn’t need Sheryl Sandberg, Dr. Laura, Dear Abby, Supergirl, or even the Hallmark Channel. We just needed Dolly.
Through her catalog of music, she taught generations how to handle breakups, how to be a strong woman, a loving partner, persist through hardship, laugh easily, and keep your faith steadfast.
Everyone can relate to something in her music. But it’s often the music that can define so much of our lives. So, in the spirit of our American Girl, find a girl like her, be a friend like her, be a working gal like her, be a kind spirit like her, and never apologize for any of it.
She was, and perhaps always will be, the very last pure-of-heart, All-American Girl.
<blockquote>
Just a wild mountain rose
Needing freedom to grow
So I ran fearing not where I’d go
When a flower grows wild
It can always survive
Wildflowers don’t care where they grow.
</blockquote>

Dolly Parton Performing

Dolly Parton: America’s Girl

opinion

philanthropy

Dolly Parton arrived on this planet on January 19, 1946. She departed it on August 25, 2026. During those 80 years, she released hit albums, acted on stage and screen, opened a theme park, and donated books, time, and money through her philanthropic endeavors. She lent her name to a line of mixes for baked goods and frozen meals. Not bad for a girl from rural Tennessee who was best known for her bust.
She was not afraid to lean into her femininity. Part of it was defensive. She grew up in rough country, but the men there <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2020/10/dolly-parton-biography-she-come-by-it-natural-excerpt.html">tended to leave</a> more glamorous-looking women alone. Of her birthplace, she said, “Womanhood was a difficult thing to get a grip on in those hills, unless you were a man.” Also, though, she and her sisters loved to look at the models in various magazines because the girls in them “didn’t look at all like they had to work in the fields. They didn’t look like they had to take a spit bath in a dishpan.” But there was another reason for her femininity, one that was much more strategic.
Making a name for herself in Nashville, in a time when the music industry was dominated by men, required a certain amount of cunning. Playing up the big-breasted, ditzy blonde lowered expectations, which was what Parton wanted. That way, they never saw her coming. She didn’t build an empire by accident.
So, Parton leaned into the stereotypes. In 1967, she released “Dumb Blonde,” a song that featured the lines, “Just because I’m blonde don’t mean I’m dumb, ‘cause this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool.” In what is quite possibly an apocryphal quote, she supposedly said, “I’m not offended by the dumb blonde jokes, because I know I’m not dumb, and I’m not blonde either.” Either way, she definitely told Barbara Walters, during a particularly patronizing interview, that “all these years, the people thought the joke was on me, but it’s actually been on the public. I know exactly what I’m doing.”
And she did. There was the record-setting 25 number-one hits by a woman on the Billboard country charts. There was “I Will Always Love You,” which Whitney Houston recorded a version of in 1992 and which sat atop the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 weeks. There were roles in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” “9 to 5,” and “Steel Magnolias.”
There was, and is, Dollywood. Bearing the badge of several other parks over the years, when Parton invested in it, it was a Silver Dollar City, a sister park to the original in Branson, Missouri. After her investment, it reopened in 1986 as Dollywood. Why a theme park? Parton said, “I always thought that if I made it big or got successful at what I had started out to do, that I wanted to come back to my part of the country and do something great, something that would bring a lot of jobs into this area.”
In 2021, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/hospitality/how-dolly-parton-built-the-tourism-empire-of-her-dreams-afdb0cca">a study</a> by the Tennessee government found that she had done just that, and then some. At the time of the study, Dollywood had created 23,000 jobs. Its annual economic impact was $1.8 billion. Parton was inducted into the theme park hall of fame in 2025. Not bad for a dumb blonde.
Also not bad was her dedication to literacy and education. Her own father never learned to read, sparking a lifelong passion in her to help others avoid that fate. She created <a href="https://imaginationlibrary.com/the-dollywood-foundation/">the Dollywood Foundation</a> in 1988 to address such concerns. She paid high school students $500 each if they graduated. She started a program delivering free books to kids under five. She awarded college scholarships. She helped keep people afloat by giving them $1,000 per month after fires devastated Sevier County, where Pigeon Forge and Dollywood are located.
In short, the dumb blonde from rural Tennessee left not just a song catalog with her passing, but a legacy. She was an entertainer, an entrepreneur, a bombshell, a brand. She was an inspiration to countless people who saw what could happen with hard work, determination, and the ability to laugh at yourself. Most important, though, was that she was genuinely friendly, forgiving, and generous.
I know this because I experienced it. I lived in Nashville for a time, back when I thought about making it in the music industry as a producer. Naturally, this meant I ended up waiting tables, including after graduating from Belmont University. One night at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, I was working a plum section with three tables against the wall. Of those three, table 63 was the best as it was situated in the corner. It was a table for VIPs, so when Dolly and a friend came in, that’s where they were seated.
She was as pleasant a guest as a server could ask for, smiling and chatting. If I hadn’t known who she was, I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out by her behavior, which is not something I can say of every celebrity I’ve waited on. True to her roots, she asked for A.1. with her steak. I was busy and forgot to deliver it.
She didn’t mention it, didn’t complain, and still tipped me 20%. R.I.P., queen. There will never be another.

Dolly Parton Performs At The Dominion Theatre in London

Dolly Parton Was The Queen Of Country And The Queen Of Real

Dolly Parton, the towering queen of country music whose sky-high blonde wigs, razor-sharp wit, and world-class talent conquered pop culture and warmed millions of hearts, has passed away. She was 80.
The tragic news was <a href="https://variety.com/2026/music/news/dolly-parton-dead-dies-country-music-1236842727/">confirmed</a> via an official Instagram video by her nephew, Bryan Seaver, on behalf of the Parton family.
Parton’s death comes after a public struggle with her health. Fans were hit with a scare in September 2025 when she abruptly canceled a slated six-night Las Vegas residency at Caesars Palace. At the time, she cracked a classic Dolly joke to ease the blow, claiming it was just time for her &#8220;100,000-mile check-up&#8221; that didn&#8217;t involve her plastic surgeon. She asked for time to &#8220;get show ready,&#8221; reassuring the world that God hadn&#8217;t told her to quit the biz just yet.
Shortly after, however, she bowed out of accepting her Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in person at the Motion Picture Academy’s Governors Awards.
Even while battling health issues, you couldn&#8217;t keep Parton down just this past summer; she was hard at work in Nashville overseeing &#8220;Dolly: An Original Musical,&#8221; an autobiographical stage production tracking her wild life that was meant to debut in 2026.
Born Jan. 19, 1946, in a dirt-poor, one-room East Tennessee cabin on Locust Ridge, Dolly Rebecca Parton was the fourth of 12 kids. Her father paid the doctor who delivered her with a simple sack of cornmeal.
Her signature track, &#8220;Coat of Many Colors,&#8221; immortalized how her mother sewed a jacket from rags for young Dolly. Kids at school laughed, but Parton didn’t care.
She recorded her first single, &#8220;Puppy Love,&#8221; at age 13 and bolted for Nashville the very morning after graduating high school in 1964, packing her belongings in paper grocery bags.
It wasn&#8217;t long before she caught her big break on The Porter Wagoner Show in 1967. Though Wagoner&#8217;s audience initially hated that she replaced beloved singer Norma Jean, Parton won them over. The duo notched 11 top-10 singles together, but Parton was destined to run her own show. When she decided to go solo in 1974, a bitter Wagoner resisted and eventually sued her for $3 million.
Instead of anger, Parton responded by writing &#8220;I Will Always Love You&#8221; as a farewell letter. The song went to No. 1 twice for Parton, but hit cosmic heights in 1992 when Whitney Houston belted it out for The Bodyguard, selling 4 million copies and racking up massive royalties for Parton.
Through the &#8217;70s and &#8217;80s, Parton&#8217;s power crossed over to pop and Hollywood. She scored a monster smash with &#8220;Here You Come Again,&#8221; and famously teamed up with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin for the 1980 workplace comedy 9 to 5. Parton wrote the movie’s legendary theme song, later lighting up the screen in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Steel Magnolias.
When male interviewers tried to corner her with condescending questions about her eye-popping chest or plastic surgeries, Parton responded with legendary, self-deprecating jokes. &#8220;It takes a lot of money to look this cheap,&#8221; she’d beam, owning her image before anyone else could mock it.
Across her six-decade career, she penned over 3,000 songs, scored 25 country No. 1s, took home 11 Grammys, and snagged a 2022 induction into the Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame. She initially turned the induction down because she didn&#8217;t think she was &#8220;rock&#8221; enough.
Then she had a hit-packed rock album, Rockstar, in 2023.
Yet for all her plaques, theme parks (like her beloved Dollywood in Pigeon Forge), and Hollywood fame, Parton’s lasting legacy might have been her radical, unpretentious kindness.
In 1995, inspired by her father’s inability to read or write, she launched Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. What started as a local crusade to mail free books to kids in East Tennessee ballooned into a global powerhouse, shipping over 200 million books to children across five countries.
When devastating wildfires wiped out thousands of homes in East Tennessee in 2016, her My People Fund didn&#8217;t just write a one-time check. The fund gave affected families $1,000 a month to get back on their feet, bumping the final check up to $10,000. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Parton sent a $1 million check to Vanderbilt University, directly funding the research that helped create the Moderna vaccine.
She also showed her grace in private. Years after Wagoner sued her, Dolly stepped in to rescue him from financial ruin when he hit rock bottom, buying his publishing company to pay off his debts and gifting it right back to him before his death.
Parton was preceded in death by her fiercely private husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, who passed in March 2025.
She leaves behind no direct children, but millions of devastated fans, and a country that had nothing but love for the backwoods Barbie with a heart of pure gold.

Dolly Performing In LA

Dolly Parton Dead At 80

Bright Side: The Country Craze Spreads From Texas To Japan

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Country music is having a moment. For the first time in history, all five of the top songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart are in the country genre.
Ella Langley’s meteoric hit “Choosin’ Texas,” the biggest single of 2026 so far, is still hanging onto the #1 spot as of Monday. It’s followed by Morgan Wallen’s new single, “Been by Now” at #2. In the third spot is Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You,” which she penned for “Toy Story 5.” In the fourth position is a duet between Langley and Wallen, “I Can’t Love You Anymore.” Rounding out the top five is “Boston” by Stella Lefty. 
Langley’s other single, “Be Her,” is in the #9 spot. Non-country songs in the top 10 include Tame Impala and Jennie’s “Dracula” at #6, Olivia Dean’s “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” at #7, Ariana Grande’s “Hate That I Made You Love Me” at #8 and Dean’s “Man I Need” is at #10.
“Choosin’ Texas” made history already by surpassing Whitney Houston&#8217;s &#8220;I Will Always Love You&#8221; and Mariah Carey&#8217;s &#8220;We Belong Together&#8221; as the longest-running non-holiday #1 one songs by female solo artists without male-billed acts, as Variety <a href="https://variety.com/2026/music/news/ella-langley-choosin-texas-ties-whitney-houston-mariah-carey-records-1236816760/">reported</a>. 
Now, many wonder whether Grammy voters will finally recognize country after snubbing the genre for years. Last year, zero country artists received nominations for major categories including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist.
The snub was a surprise for fans and industry experts, especially as country music continues to have massive commercial dominance. After voters rejected country&#8217;s dominance, big stars such as Miranda Lambert, George Strait, and Morgan Wallen skipped the Grammys earlier this year.
&#8220;I really hope it doesn&#8217;t turn into that type of dialogue based around politics Right or Left, because it really is not that; it&#8217;s really about what the voters choose to vote for any given year, and it is cyclical,&#8221; Grammy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. <a href="https://tasteofcountry.com/grammys-responds-country-snub/">said</a> earlier this year of country getting shafted.

Ella Langley

Country Music Takes All Top 5 Billboard Spots For First Time Ever

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A couple of months ago, we delivered the obituary for rock music — a genre that was never going to survive the post-Obama cultural shifts in America, which punish experimentation and risk-taking, as well as anything important to white people, while rewarding manufactured solo acts that are easier to market on social media and much easier to manage and control. 
There&#8217;s no doubt that the death of rock is a very bad sign — you might even call it a &#8220;leading indicator&#8221; of cultural decay in this country. Of course, some people — some conservatives, especially — might argue that rock music itself was a driver of cultural decay. And in some cases they might be right. 
But generally speaking, rock was — still is, where you can find it — a truly great art form, in my view. And more than that, it is an American art form. Rock was both a product of American culture and a producer of American culture. 
Each decade going back to the 50s saw a new stage in the evolution of the genre, reflecting changes and shifts in the culture at large — whether it was the prog rock, heavy metal, and arena rock of the 70s, or the new wave and hair metal of the 80s, or the alt rock and grunge of the 90s, and so on. 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/matt-walsh-show-ep-1814"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-995295 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Walsh-Banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Walsh-Banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Walsh-Banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Walsh-Banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
You can go back and listen to the rock music of a particular decade, and come away with a better understanding of the cultural mood of that time. Our current decade is arguably the first in 70 years without its own unique rock sound. That is not a good thing, I would quite emphatically argue. 
It’s yet another symptom of an exhausted, decadent culture with no new ideas and nothing left to say. 
That said, there are some subgenres of rock that, while not often producing huge mainstream hits, still churn out great music nonetheless. 
Folk rock is one of those subgenres. I say that really just as a way to wedge in a mention of Glen Hansard, one of the great folk rock and singer-songwriter musicians of our time, who just sadly died in a motorcycle accident on Wednesday. 
He starred in a movie called “Once” back in 2007 that, if you consider it a musical (and I do), is one of the only musicals I ever personally enjoyed. He was a great artist. If you aren’t familiar with him, you should go look him up.
In any case, while rock has fallen on hard times — along with a number of other once-thriving musical genres — it’s not all bad news. 
There is another traditional American genre that&#8217;s somehow thriving right now. And it’s worth thinking about how it has managed to succeed in an environment that has all but destroyed so many other genres. 
This is the counterbalancing narrative to the decline of rock. And it is, dare I say, a cause for some optimism: As rock has faded, country music is dominating the charts. This is a resurgence that&#8217;s been building for several years now. You can make the case that country music is now the strongest it&#8217;s ever been — certainly in terms of its popularity relative to other genres.
Ella Langley&#8217;s &#8220;Choosin&#8217; Texas&#8221; has now spent 15 weeks at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That&#8217;s a record for a female solo act, excluding holiday releases. The previous recordholders were &#8220;We Belong Together&#8221; by Mariah Carey and &#8220;I Will Always Love You&#8221; by Whitney Houston — although the latter was actually written by Dolly Parton, whose original version is superior in my opinion. 
Each song spent 14 weeks at the top spot. Ella Langley’s surprising triumph has been a cause of consternation for some people on social media, who are clearly not thrilled to see a down-home country girl from Alabama take this particular crown. And it’s caused heartburn for some critics who fashion themselves country music purists and have decided that Langley is not authentic enough or something. 
But in fact, she’s quite authentic, and the song, whether you happen to enjoy it or not, is, in many ways, a classic old-school country song. We’ll discuss more about the particular song in a moment and why it&#8217;s successful, but suffice it to say, it&#8217;s not an outlier. As <a href="https://www.billboard.com/lists/ella-langley-choosin-texas-hot-100-number-one-15-weeks/">Billboard</a> reports:
<blockquote>Country hits claim the top four for a second time in the Hot 100’s history, two weeks after the genre first achieved the feat. &#8230; Below “Choosin’ Texas,” Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You” is No. 2 for a fifth consecutive week, after it spent its first two weeks on the Hot 100 at No. 1 in June; Stella Lefty’s first top 10, “Boston,” surges 6-3 for a new high; and Langley and Morgan Wallen’s “I Can’t Love You Anymore” rebounds three spots to its No. 4 best. Two weeks earlier, “Choosin’ Texas,” “I Knew It, I Knew You” and “I Can’t Love You Anymore” were in the same spots, joined by Langley’s “Be Her” at No. 3. In eight other weeks — all in the past three years — country titles took the top three, starting on the Aug. 5, 2023-dated Hot 100, via Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,” Wallen’s “Last Night” and Luke Combs’ “Fast Car.” Of the nine weeks all-time with country songs at either Nos. 1-3 or Nos. 1-4 on the Hot 100, this week marks the fifth in a row dating to the first week in July.</blockquote>
There are other metrics we could talk about, including the fact that country has been the fastest-growing U.S. genre in on-demand streaming since 2023. The longest-running No. 1 songs in the last three years on streaming services have all been country songs. 
I do have to acknowledge that a lot of modern country music is also terrible. I&#8217;m not going to pretend that every country music song is worthwhile, while all Latin, hip-hop, and R&amp;B is a waste of time. That wouldn’t be true on either score. There are plenty of cliché, boilerplate country songs that sound like they were made primarily to serve as the soundtrack for an Applebee’s commercial. 
There are plenty of country songs that have infused so many pop and even hip-hop elements that they barely qualify as country songs at all. But, even so, many of the popular country songs in recent years have been faithful in tone, theme, and sound to traditional country music — including Ella Langley, Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers, Lainey Wilson, and others. 
This is not just a story of country music achieving widespread success by stripping itself of every defining feature and becoming a soulless, corporate product indistinguishable from AI slop. There is some of that happening, certainly. But we’re also witnessing a genuine resurgence of the genre at its core.
This is significant in part because, historically, country has been dominated by rural Americans, especially in the South and West, where it originated. What we&#8217;re seeing now is a major victory for Southern culture, which, as we all know, has been vilified and beaten down in mainstream discourse for some time now — certainly, since Obama&#8217;s presidency. 
Country music in the South grew out of the folk ballads from Scottish, Irish, and English immigrants. They were Celtic ballads that transformed into something distinctively American, which gave voice to the unique American experience. One of the first country songs that could be called a mainstream hit — maybe the first ever — was called the “Wreck of the Old 97,” released in 1924, about a train derailment in Virginia. 
So this was a genre that was, in many respects, invented to tell the American story, especially its tragic elements. And in the West, country music had its origins in the lifestyles of ranchers and cattle drivers on the frontier. The songs had relevance to specific parts of the country in ways a lot of music executives didn&#8217;t realize at first.
But in the 1990s, when the music industry turned on the SoundScan system, they immediately realized how popular country music was in these particular areas of the country. Rural radio was the stronghold for country music, even though there were several artists with wide crossover appeal, including Shania Twain and Garth Brooks.  
As of 1997, there were more than 2,400 radio stations devoted solely to country music broadcasting throughout the United States, accounting for more than a quarter of all commercial radio stations in the country.   
Around the same time, country music accounted for roughly 20% of all record sales. Meanwhile, in February 1996 — as country music was surging in small towns across America — New York City&#8217;s biggest country music station — WYNY 103.5 FM — stopped playing country music full-time. They moved over to dance music. In the biggest radio market in the United States, there was no full-time country music station on FM radio. So country was, indeed, a phenomenon in the South and West in particular. And now it&#8217;s coming back.
The song &#8220;Choosin’ Texas,&#8221; in particular, is a solid vehicle to spearhead, or at least participate in, this comeback. I&#8217;m not going to pretend that it&#8217;s some historic, extraordinary achievement in songwriting or anything like that. It isn’t an artistic masterpiece necessarily. But it is a genuine country song, and a good one, that is now objectively one of the biggest hits of this century. 
It&#8217;s also not some insufferable girlboss anthem. If anything, it&#8217;s an anti-girlboss anthem. And it&#8217;s not a braindead pop song pretending to be country, wearing the style of country music like a skinsuit.  In case you&#8217;ve somehow never heard this song, here it is: 
Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Ella Langley - Choosin&#039; Texas (Official Lyric Video)" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hLOheGDwD_0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
It’s about a woman who&#8217;s pining for a man who&#8217;s choosing someone else. It&#8217;s a song that feels less like a lot of modern pop country and more like a spiritual successor to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” Which, given that “Jolene” is one of the greatest songs of all time, is not bad company to be in. 
A song like “Jolene” resonates across generations because it&#8217;s about feelings and troubles that people connect with. It’s about someone who is pleading, desperate, and heartbroken. That’s a human experience. 
A lot of modern pop and hip hop music — and plenty of the worst and most fraudulent country music — by comparison, consists of the artist bragging about themselves. It’s false and fake and doesn’t speak to anything deeper in the human soul, which may be one of the reasons why the public is tiring of those genres. 
When I praised the Ella Langley song on X, a few people responded that her song is also degenerate nonsense because it’s about a woman drinking away her sorrows. And sure, that&#8217;s part of it. I&#8217;m not trying to make the case that this song should be some kind of Bible for how to live your life. 
But, first of all, like it or not, drinking away your troubles has been a regular theme of country music for 70 years at least. And second, again, pining for something, and feeling heartbroken because you can’t have it, is human. It’s real. And those are the aspects of the human condition that music is supposed to illuminate and give voice to. In short, it’s a song about yearning, about longing.
All that to say, if the concept of “yearning,” or longing, is making a small, limited, isolated comeback, by way of country music — that would be good news. It would suggest that people are becoming more aspirational, as opposed to being demanding and insufferable. 
People want to live in a part of the country that has a viable future. Living around death and decay and incompetence is extremely demoralizing. And it contradicts a natural human impulse, which is to strive for something better than you currently have. 
Call it &#8220;yearning&#8221; or &#8220;desire&#8221; or whatever you want, but there&#8217;s an unmistakable drive in most people to improve their circumstances for themselves and future generations. If you live in a state like California or Illinois, then in all likelihood, you don&#8217;t see how things can get any better, because every year they&#8217;re getting worse.
People who are optimistic and forward-thinking, on the other hand, are getting out of town. And unsurprisingly, in other aspects of their life, they&#8217;re seeking out content that isn&#8217;t intended to demoralize them or glorify murder and depravity. 
That explains why the most conservative and most traditionally American regions of the country are dominating the rest of it. And it explains why there&#8217;s a newfound demand for wholesome, original, upbeat content, rather than the degenerate drivel we&#8217;ve been subjected to for decades. 
Is it the most important victory that conservatives could possibly win? No. Are there many other things we need to fight for, instead of conducting hearings where nothing is ever accomplished? Absolutely. 
But all the same, it&#8217;s a very important start. It&#8217;s a very welcome sign. And for once, as tempting as it may be to indulge in gloom and doomerism, we should celebrate that.

Country Music Is Absolutely Dominating. Here’s Why.

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Jolene

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Driving down Tennessee roads with rolling green fields, a big blue sky, and beautiful 19th-century homes, I wasn’t sure what to expect from my interview with Lakelin Lemmings, but I couldn’t wait to find out. Three years ago, the rising star signed a publishing deal with Quartz Hill Records at 17 and a label deal at 19. Just days before the release of her debut album, the Gen Z singer spoke with me about her music, passion for God, goals of motherhood, and mission to &#8220;remain country.&#8221;
Lakelin arrived at the recording studio in a boot-cut denim jumpsuit and red paisley scarf around her neck, and I knew right away this girl wasn’t someone who takes herself too seriously. When I told her that we share the same birth year and I couldn’t wait to hear from a woman who’s dealing with the same issues as other Gen Z girls our age, she smiled. With Lakelin&#8217;s <a href="https://open.spotify.com/prerelease/1UnCpJJNyTv1D8nlKVlgiI">first album</a> coming out on Friday, she is excited.
“I&#8217;m feeling like all the hard work and stuff is about to pay off, and that hopefully everybody loves it as much as I do,” Lakelin said. “I think one of the earliest songs in the album I wrote was when I was freshly 16 and the last one when I turned 19. It&#8217;s finally gonna be introduced into the world.”
Many of the songs in the album tackle the topics of young love, relationships, and heartbreak. As someone who loves “How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days” and any good rom-com, Lakelin said she sometimes pulled inspiration from shows she watched, but she has also dealt with a series of her own relationship struggles.
Like other young women her age, Lakelin has had her share of situationships — a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/experimentations/202403/are-you-in-a-situationship/amp?utm_source=chatgpt.com">term</a> Gen Z uses to describe a romantic relationship without commitment labels. Lakelin&#8217;s song “What Are We Doing” is trying to figure out just that. In “Get Around Boy,” the song lists the places Lakelin hopes to travel to and describes a young man who stays behind in Tennessee as she chases her dreams. Eventually, Lakelin did travel to nearly all the places she mentions, and now says she has a boy “in the back of my mind.”
As the title “19 &amp; Single” suggests, the song touches on the pressure to get married with lyrics like, “I’m all for a Friday night with the girls / &#8216;Cause 19 and single ain’t the end of the world.” Lakelin said she feels pressure when friends get engaged, married, and start having babies. With earnest hopes for marriage and motherhood, Lakelin said she has made sacrifices to be where she is, but still wants to perform her music and pursue her dreams.
Not all of Lakelin&#8217;s lyrics were inspired by what you’d expect. After singing along in the car to Lakelin’s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DbHG1muBl1G/?hl=en">“He Ain’t Coming Back,”</a> I had to get the scoop behind this earworm. Another smile.
“Yeah, so everybody thinks that, you know, ‘He Ain&#8217;t Coming Back’ is about some boy that did me wrong and something like that,” Lakelin said. “But the story of it is actually — I was finishing up writing the album and we needed an up-tempo song.” 
Just days before it was time to record the album, Lakelin texted her two favorite co-writers to tell them the emergency: They had to come up with one more track. They convened on a Friday, but the co-writers had to cancel another appointment to make the timing work. 
“We get there, and we’re writing, and we hadn&#8217;t really gotten a title or anything yet, and — a knock on the door. It&#8217;s the guy that they were supposed to write with,” Lakelin said.
After the co-writers explained the rescheduling and the man’s confusion passed, he left. But the situation was “just really awkward,” Lakelin said.
“My co-writer, after he leaves, is like, ‘Man, I hope he comes back,’ and I just look at him, and I go, ‘Oh, he ain&#8217;t coming back.’ And a light bulb and a flip switched, and we were like, ‘We&#8217;re writing that.’”
Throughout Lakelin’s journey, her faith in God has been central. There have been difficult moments, Lakelin said, but she believes “God’s called me to country music.” Lakelin describes herself as a Christian who writes country music, not as a Christian country artist.
“I feel like there&#8217;s a need in country music for somebody that loves country music and can talk about those types of things, but also is rooted in her faith and is genuinely someone who&#8217;s only after God&#8217;s will,” Lakelin said, noting that Christian country singers often sing traditional Christian songs that feel less “country.”
“I love Christian music, and I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ll dabble in it,&#8221; she said. &#8220;And I have a little bit to keep the faith life of mine, but I&#8217;m always going to remain country.”
As someone who stays with her family whenever she’s not on the road, Lakelin loves seeing her two little sisters — aged one and three — who know her as “Lae Lae.” Lakelin said she’s like their second mother, with a large age gap between them and the three oldest siblings. Lemmings was the middle child for years with her now 23-year-old sister, whom she would compete with in singing, and a 17-year-old brother. However, after the first daughter left the nest, Lemmings said her parents wanted more kids, dreaming of having a family of eight.
Lakelin’s family couldn&#8217;t be more supportive of her burgeoning music career. Since she was little, Lakelin has performed in competitions, and her extended family still recalls when she was performing at their barbecue singing competition. Lakelin said she does wonder what they think watching her grow from small performances to standing on grand stages. 
How does she stay grounded in some sort of routine with a life that is always moving from writing and recording sessions to performances and tours? She named only two things: her coffee in the morning and her Bible in the evening. 
“After a long week or a long day in the music world, I like to just go home and have a cup of coffee, read my Bible, maybe tan a little bit, and just spend time with family and friends,” she said.
Lakelin has a message to other girls who are dreamers with a desire from God but see too many roadblocks.
“If you&#8217;re gonna be a dreamer, you got to be a doer. And I think that if you have a dream, then chase it,” Lakelin said. “If it&#8217;s God&#8217;s will and his plan, then it&#8217;s going to work out just the way it&#8217;s supposed to. It&#8217;s going to be hard at times to trust that and trust in Him, but you just got to keep the faith.”
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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The Country Star Bringing Faith To Center Stage

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