Known for her outsize persona, appearance, and talent, she rose from rural poverty to become a top-selling singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur.
Dolly Parton, a rags-to-rhinestones daughter of Appalachia who for six decades ruled country music and beyond with an outsize personality and down-home wit that enshrined her as one of America’s most cherished originals, died on August 25, 2026, in Nashville. She was eighty. Her death was announced by her family. A spokesman said that she died after a brief battle with cancer. Dolly’s humble beginnings led her to be able to be self-deprecated, often times saying that her signature caricature look was based on the look of the town tramp. She was anything but a tramp.
In 1966, Ms. Parton married Carl Dean, an asphalt contractor who shunned the limelight. The love of her life had met two years earlier, at a laundromat in Nashville, when Ms. Parton was 18. Mr. Dean died in 2025. One might ponder if in fact she died of a broken heart, passing so soon after the loss of her beloved husband.
Of the more than 3,000 songs she sang in her lifetime there is one that rents a special place in my heart. Written in 1977, a year after the creation of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous in Boston in 1976. I believe this song could have been the official fellowships theme song.
Despite being one of Dolly Parton’s most famous signature hits, “Here You Come Again” was not written by Dolly Parton. Because she wrote an overwhelming majority of her own catalog, this 1977 smash hit remains a fascinating outlier in her career.
The legendary, Oscar-nominated songwriting duo Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil actually penned the song.
Dolly was actively looking for a mainstream pop crossover track at the time. When she heard it, she loved it but insisted on keeping a distinct steel guitar in the arrangement so she wouldn’t completely leave her country roots behind. It paid off beautifully, becoming Dolly’s first million-selling gold single and her major introduction to the pop charts.
Let’s take a deep dive into the lyrics and try to see it through the lenses of SLAA.
Verse 1
Here you come again
Just when I’d begun to get myself together
You waltz right in the door
Just like you’ve done before
And wrap my heart ’round your little finger
Verse 2
Here you come again
Just when I’m about to make it work without you
You look into my eyes
And lie those pretty lies
And pretty soon I’m wondering’ how I came to doubt you
Chorus
All you got to do is smile that smile
And there go all my defenses
Just leave it up to you and in a little while
You’re messin’ up my mind and fillin’ up my senses
Verse 3
Here you come again
Lookin’ better than a body has a right to
And shakin’ me up so that all I really know
Is here you come again
And here I go
Forty-nine years later the world still doesn’t hear this tragically true, sad, and accurate story and experience it clearly as addictive.
This built-in societal norm has been around since the beginning of time from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to Looking for Mr. Goodbar, the 1977 movie based on a bestselling novel by Judith Rossner. The book was inspired by the real-life 1973 murder of New York teacher Roseann Quinn. Towards the end of the story the Ms. Quinn character is sitting alone in a bar on New Year’s Eve and asks the bar tender for a drink, then offers to buy him a drink to which he responds that he doesn’t drink to her surprise. When she asks him why he responds with the Alcoholics Anonymous axiom: one is too many and a million not enough, in an instant she banters back THAT’S THE WAY I AM WITH MEN! The more things change the more they stay the same.
I am sad about Dolly’s passing. A rare combination of talent and grace. R.I.P. but the music will last forever.
Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) celebrates 50 years this year. They just released their latest publication which is their equivalent of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. A much needed and well-done addition to the fellowship. Congratulations, and the message lives on.
I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful summer and remember: MISERY IS OPTIONAL.
NO MORE SECRETS 