(cassette loading noise)
("Jolene" by Dolly Parton)
- I'm just pretty open and honest.
I mean there's not just a
whole lot I won't tell you. - [Lawrence Grobel] That's--
- [Dolly Parton] I think most people appreciate--
- [Lawrence Grobel] Yeah--
- [Dolly Parton] That the fact that you'll just be open and honest
rather than, you know, putting you down
by saying "Don't ask silly questions."
I would say that if you asked something
I thought was a silly question, I would just--
- [Lawrence Grobel] Alright, here we go.
(laughing)
- [Dolly Parton] Don’t ask silly questions.
(laughing)
- [Dolly Parton] Uh, are you serious?
(country guitar playing)
You know I was laughing the other night about something.
I guess my aunt had a toilet and a bathroom,
and we were so fascinated.
You know, we were afraid, I was afraid to use it.
You know I just thought it was going to suck us right down.
It was just really weird.
She also had the first television we ever saw too.
- [Lawrence Grobel] How old were you when you first saw television?
- Hmm, maybe uh, eight?
- [Lawrence Grobel] And the toilet was around the same time?
- [Dolly] Yeah, I guess so, it was just all new.
I was thinking about if
I was on the Johnny Carson show.
I just got to thinking one night.
I was laughing about how ain't nobody had ever asked me
about how we bathed or what we did.
You know, because we didn't have, you know.
We made our own soap.
And sometime we'd go to the river
and we'd all just pile in the truck.
Of course we had a creek, but the river was great.
That was like a big bath.
You know, we would all go in swimming
and we'd wash each other's hair.
You know, just soap would just flowing down the river.
You know, that's what we bathed in the summer time.
And, I was making a joke about how so many of us
were so dirty that it would have left a ring
around the Little Pigeon River.
You know, like a bathtub?
(lively guitar music)
In the winter time, we just had a pan of water,
and we washed down as far as possible,
and we wash up as far as possible,
then when someone cleared the room we'd wash possible.
(laughing)
So you know, that's the way it was.
(lively guitar music)
- How often did you bathe in the winter?
Was it like once a week or every two weeks?
- [Dolly] Well, we bathed once a week whether
we needed it or not as the saying goes (laughing).
Well when I was in high school,
you know that was a big deal,
and I had to take a bath every night in the (mumbles)
to be clean, because kids peed on me every night.
And we all slept together there were so many, many of us.
Well we slept in between three and four in the bed.
I would wash every night and as soon as I
go to bed the kids would wet on me,
and I have to get up in the morning and do the same thing.
- [Lawrence Grobel] When they wet on you though did you get up
and wipe yourself clean and just sort of accepted it?
- [Dolly Parton] No, that was the only warm thing
we knew in the winter time.
I mean that was almost pleasure to get peed on,
because it was so cold.
Lord, it was as cold in the room
where we slept as it was outside.
We bundled up to go to bed.
(lively folk music)
So, I really wanted to wear lipstick.
Our daddy didn't want us to wear lipstick, so I,
we used to, we didn't have money to buy makeup anyway,
but we used to have this medicine,
you know called Mercurochrome,
and that's what I'd paint my lips even as a little kid.
I mean I always wanted to wear makeup.
And I'd paint my lips,
and see there wasn't nothing Daddy could do.
He couldn't rub that off.
You know it stains your lips, and those
little bitty bottles that just perfect
to go around your lip line.
And then I would, you know, I would blot it off,
and then Daddy he'd say "Come here.
"You get that lipstick off you."
And I'd say it won't come off.
You know that's my natural color, Daddy.
(laughing)
He'd say "Bull".
And when we wanted the eyebrows.
You know we'd get burnt matches.
Matches that had been burned, and we'd wet 'em
and make my little eyebrows and whatever.
When I was sophomore in high school, I started,
the teased hair came in, and just all,
and I started doing that, and ever since then I've done it.
I just like it!
And I wore my skirt so tight, I could hardly wiggle in them.
Even as a little bitty kid, even before I had a figure,
I liked my clothes, you know, snug and tight.
People would always kid me in school about my little butt,
you know, and my little blue jeans or whatever.
Momma, she always understood stuff like that.
If we wanted to do something, Momma just always said
"You be what you are and you don't have
"to worry about nothing.
"If you want to say something, you say it.
"To whoever, if you want to say something, just tell 'em."
And I always did, and I still do.
♫ The bright lights of this city
♫ Are a pretty sight to see ♫
- [Lawrence Grobel] Do you like Los Angeles at all?
- [Dolly Parton] For a while, it's beautiful out here,
and it's exciting.
I really enjoy it for a week.
After that I go LA crazy.
You know, I just gotta get out of here.
You know, it's just so crazy and wild,
especially for the places I have to be,
and the people I have to be around when I'm out here.
Most of them so spastic and so,
just involved in all sorts of weird things,
especially show people, you know.
And I just have to get away from here.
That old, get home fever.
- [Lawrence Grobel] The country in you starts get--
- [Dolly Parton] Yeah, that old country in me says
"What in the world are you doing walking on this concrete
"when you could be rolling in the grass."
(laughs)
♫ And I will always love you ♫
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