In March 2024, Dolly Parton took to Instagram to mark the 50th anniversary of her tear-jerking masterpiece “I Will Always Love You”. “It will always hold a special place in my heart as I hope it does in yours,” she wrote – only for a fan to immediately reply, “I never realised it was your song.”
Parton, who has died aged 80, would surely have conceded that point. Incredibly, she wrote “I Will Always Love You” the same day she penned her other defining smash, “Jolene”. But while that second song will forever be associated with Parton – when Beyoncé covered it on her Cowboy Carter album, it was impossible not to compare it to Parton’s original and find it wanting – “I Will Always Love You” has gone out into the world and taken on an existence of its own, even though the lyrics are among the most personal Parton ever put to paper.
It is, of course, best known as the theme from Whitney Houston’s 1992 blockbuster The Bodyguard, where it expresses the passion Houston’s pop-star character feels for her hunky security guard (Kevin Costner). A global number one – it topped the UK singles charts for 10 weeks – that version is said to have earned Parton $10 million in royalties, and she recalled how she was so astounded by what Houston had done with the tune – making an already epic track feel as vast as a sunset – that she had to stop driving.
