As a child, Dolly Parton was mocked for wearing a coat made from rags. Years later, she turned that painful humiliation into one of her most famous songs

Dolly Parton, the country music legend whose songs, films and philanthropy made her one of the most recognisable figures in American entertainment, died in Nashville on August 25 at the age of 80, her family announced. She leaves behind a career that stretched across seven decades, but some of her most lasting work came from memories of a childhood that was very different from the glamorous life she later built.

One of those memories involved a coat made from scraps of fabric, a schoolyard humiliation and a song that eventually became one of her most loved recordings.

Dolly Parton grew up with very little money

Born on January 19, 1946, in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, Parton was the fourth of 12 children raised by Robert Lee Parton and Avie Lee Owens Parton. The family lived in a small cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains and had little money.


Her father worked hard to provide for the family, while her mother helped raise the children and filled their home with Appalachian songs and stories. Parton later became known for speaking openly about those early years instead of trying to hide them.

One particular memory stayed with her.

As per her autobiograpgy, her mother once made a coat for Dolly from pieces of old fabric because the family could not afford to buy a new one. While making it, she told her daughter the biblical story of Joseph and his coat of many colours.

Dolly was proud of the coat and wore it to school. The other children, however, laughed at her because it was made from rags.

The painful memory became 'Coat of Many Colors'

The schoolyard teasing could have remained an unpleasant childhood memory. Instead, Parton turned it into music.

In 1971, she released “Coat of Many Colors”, an autobiographical song about the coat her mother made for her and the way other children treated her because of it. The song did not simply focus on being poor. It showed how something that looked worthless to others could carry enormous emotional value.

Parton captured that feeling in the lyrics: “Now I know we had no money, but I was rich as I could be,” she sings, “In my coat of many colors my momma made for me.”

The Country Music Hall of Fame has described the song as a direct account of the childhood experience.

For Parton, the coat represented much more than the fact that her family could not afford new clothes. It represented her mother’s effort, love and the pride she felt wearing something made especially for her.

She carried that childhood lesson through her career

Parton went on to leave Tennessee after high school and build a career that eventually made her one of the biggest names in country music. She wrote thousands of songs and became known for hits including “Jolene”, “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You”.

Her approach to her own past remained much the same. She did not try to separate her enormous success from the poverty she experienced growing up.

That was also reflected in her philanthropy. In 1995, Parton launched the Imagination Library, a programme inspired partly by her father, who could not read or write. It began in her home county and grew into an international literacy programme that sends free, age-appropriate books to children.

The contrast was striking. The girl who had once been laughed at because she wore a coat made from scraps eventually helped put millions of books into children's hands.