Drafted and revised August 26, 2026.

I was at the laundromat yesterday working on future newsletters when I saw the news that Dolly Parton had passed. I started tearing up at the laundromat, and then later when I read that she met her beloved late husband Carl outside of a laundromat, I started crying again.

I grew up always knowing who Dolly Parton was because my Dad had the Heartsongs album, we went to Dollywood when I was a kid, and growing up we always watched the Grand Ole Opry every week on TV. The branch of country music I grew up with was more bluegrass and gospel than Nashville sound. My mom learned to play dulcimer many years ago and when I was growing up she taught me too. Then my Dad picked up the hammered dulcimer for a few years. In college, I dated a guy who was friends with the Tillers, a Cincinnati bluegrass band getting their start playing shows at places like the Crow’s Nest in Price Hill.

While I was in college, I took a Women in Music class where I read Dolly’s 1990s memoir (that my Dad owned) as part of a paper I wrote on women in country music, a paper that also included Loretta Lynn and Kitty Wells. I tried to go back through my electronic and paper files yesterday to see if perhaps a copy of that paper survived anywhere, and regretfully it seems lost to time. The earliest mention I could find of her in the gmail I’ve had since college was a 2010 exchange with a kind and handsome photojournalist living in Baton Rouge who I briefly dated who sent me a video of a Steve Martin waltz. After a quick listen, I replied to him stating that it sure sounded like Dolly had vocals on the track (with Vince Gill).

Anyone who has ever heard Dolly knows what an instantly recognizable voice she has, and anyone who listens to a wide range of music knows how often she appears as a collaborator with others. A few years ago, I began noticing that Dolly was undergoing something of a revival and entering her beloved elder stateswoman role, but her musical visibility seemed limited to her biggest hits like 9-5 and Jolene. Many people know Dolly as a camp icon, a role she clearly loved and embraced. They rightfully see her as a feminist icon who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. But to only know Dolly as the singer of 9-5 or Jolene is sort of like thinking you’ve seen all of America because you’ve been to New York City. It doesn’t even scratch the surface of what an incredibly talented woman and musician she was, in an industry that has always been notably hostile to successful women, especially when they are talented musicians.

For those of us who grew up at a time when you always had to clarify that you liked country music but not “commercial country music,” Dolly has always reigned in our hearts as an earnest narrator of love: love not just at its worst with betrayal and deceit, and love not just in the romantic sense, but also a narrator of love in every form one can think of, love at its transcendental best.

So many people have written about what Dolly means to them. My social media feed is full of queers talking about what she meant to the LGBTQ community, female musicians talking about how she shaped the industry, music professors talking about how her musical genius, Appalachians talking about how she never forget where she came from. So many people claim Dolly because she was that rare person we have too few of these days: a once in a generation true icon. Dolly knew how to flirt with the whole room, how to make everyone laugh, and then how to move them to tears a few minutes later. The old-fashioned term for this would be charming, and sadly American culture has been in a charm drought for decades.

If you spend any time in the astrology/woo woo parts of the internet, you know by now that Dolly was a Capricorn (not only a Capricorn Sun, but also a Capricorn Venus - just like me! Unlike me, Dolly’s moon and rising are in Virgo). Of course, I already knew Dolly was not just a Capricorn but arguably one of the greatest Capricorns of all time. When some of my friends and I hosted a Capricorn party last year we paid homage to her in our party invitation.

A few years ago I made a zine called COMRADE CAPRICORN. I used it to poke at a lot of the stereotypes that unfairly follow Capricorns around about how they’re capitalist workaholics, only out for themselves, and who are no fun and can’t take a joke. This is chronically online meme astrology at its worst. You may think astrology is total nonsense, but enough people are into it that it’s worth pushing back on reductionist approaches to astrology. Otherwise you get asinine people who say they won’t be a roommate with someone simply because they were born in late December-early January.

Dolly was a Capricorn Queen because her ambition and success was something she never apologized for in a world where women are still routinely punished for being successful. She also knew the value of collaboration, and lent her voice to so many others on their way to building their own careers. It’s telling that everyone from Brandi Carlile to Pitbull has credited her for her generosity early in their careers. In addition to her ambition, perhaps the thing that stands out to me the most is how earnest and playful she was. Earnest people are not often perceived as playful, and playful people are not often perceived as ambitious. It is extraordinarily rare to find this combination in someone, and because it’s so rare, many people are completely disarmed by it.

My favorite Dolly song is one I listened to on repeat in the final stretch of my divorce, when I knew I was through the worst but before I was really stepping into the next part of my life. It’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” and I love it so much because it showcases that combination of earnestness, starting out with a slow gospel, and gets straight up funky towards the end with a playful bouncy boogie. If you listen very closely, you even hear Dolly give a little “WOO!” in the final seconds of the track. I know it’s a song that resonates with many, and it’s Capricorn energy at its best: a goat has to scale a mountain, and that the only way out is through.

It’s a good song to start with if you’re looking to expand your Dolly knowledge and why so many of us revere her musicianship. I’m so sad that Dolly is no longer with us, and also I’m excited for a new group of fans to discover her extensive and awe-inducing back catalog. If you click the link below, it will take you to a playlist of some of my favorites from our beautiful Capricorn Queen.

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