“One Woman Affected Everything”: This Country Icon’s Long-Time, Heartbreaking Crush on Dolly Parton

She did, at the very least, say she loved her not-so-secret admirer…just like a brother.

This Country Icon’s Long-Time Crush on Dolly Parton

In the earliest days of Dolly Parton’s career, she traveled with country legends like Porter Wagoner and Merle Haggard. The rising star would sometimes ride on the same bus as the latter artist, playing cards and spending time together. “[Merle] reminded me of my brother, Denver,” Parton later recalled in her 2020 book Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics (via Whiskey Riff). “So, I really related to him. We had a good time.”

But for Haggard, hanging out with Parton was more than a “good time.” He later wrote in his 1981 memoir Sing Me Back Home, “My favorite image of America’s sweetheart is not all that glitter and show, but the kidlike creature who used to sit herself down on a pillow on the floor of my bus aisle, lay her head on my knees, and talk on and on about her dreams and that plan of hers to be a STAR. She was so sure of herself, so positive, and God, she just glowed with confidence and excitement.”

It didn’t take long for Haggard to develop romantic feelings for Parton, and after he did, he wrote that it “affected everything. I didn’t just fall in love with the image of Dolly Parton. Hell, I fell in love with that exceptional human being who lives underneath all that bunch of fluffy hair, fluttery eyelashes, and super boobs. I was like a schoolboy. I would have carved ‘Merle loves Dolly’ on every damn tree in the country if she’d asked me to.”

Merle Haggard’s Song For Dolly (That He Made Her Listen to at 3 a.m.)

While Merle Haggard struggled with his feelings for Dolly Parton, he also struggled to maintain his relationship with Bonnie Owens, his wife from 1965 to 1978. The “Jolene” singer also had a husband, Carl Perkins, whom she married in 1966. In his memoir Sing Me Back Home, Haggard said Parton would repeatedly reject his advances, saying, “I’m married, Merle. Don’t you understand that I love Carl? I really do.”

Nevertheless, that didn’t stop the lovelorn Haggard from writing a song about his crush on Dolly Parton…and then forcing her to listen to it at 3 a.m. After arguing with who Haggard assumed was her housekeeper, the country icon finally got Parton on the line. He then proceeded to play her a freshly written version of “Always Wanting You” over the phone. Always wanting you but never having you makes it hard to face tomorrow, the song begins.

“I would have given anything to have seen her face,” Haggard later wrote. “Then I’d know what she thought, what she felt about the song—and me. All I could do was stare into the black plastic receiver connecting us together. By the time I finished, my mind had canceled out on me. I don’t even remember what she said.”