I want to ask you, you have this new album right now.
You've done, I read this today, 73 albums.
That's probably about right,
but I've been at it a long time.
Can you even remember all of these?
No, well I do if I hear them.
I think, oh yeah, that was back in '02.
Right, right.
Was there ever one of those 73 that you regretted?
Like you've done so much great work.
Was there ever one that you thought
I wish I hadn't done that one.
Oh, you know, you've always got, when you're a songwriter,
you think they're all good.
It's like how everybody thinks their kids are pretty,
even if they're not.
Right, right.
(audience laughing)
Yes, my family's well aware of that, yes.
But yeah, there's songs.
I wrote this song once about a man
that owned a bunch of oil wells,
And I was trying to marry him.
♪ I'll always love you ♪
♪ I'll always care ♪
♪ I'll always love you ♪
♪ I want your oil wells, dear. ♪
That was before I Will Always Love You.
Yes, you're like okay, I'm gonna work on that.
I don't want to throw rice.
I want to throw rocks at her.
She took the only love I had.
I don't want to throw rice.
I want to throw rocks at her.
(audience cheering)
You've written so many great songs,
but that doesn't really roll off the tongue.
I don't want to throw rice at her.
Yeah, but it's like, I'm going to throw rice,
but I'm going to cook it first.
But you write all these things.
Remember those old songs years ago,
like Don't Squeeze My Sharmon.
You know, people used to write that
and country music was famous for it,
but yeah, I got some suckers in there,
but I've got a few good ones.
I looked up your least popular album of all time.
I actually looked it up today, I found it.
And it's pretty fascinating.
It just didn't work.
(audience cheering)
I don't know why.
That was a good picture of us, though, don't you think?
That was me as the cowboy pervert right there.
(audience laughing)
You know, you talk a lot about how you
grew up and you were quite poor when you grew up
and that you actually ate things that you caught.
Well, yeah, you do in the mountains
when you're country people.
It sounds awful when you read it
and people think, oh you go around eating possum
and groundhog and squirrel and rabbit,
but that's what you do.
Either that, or you go hungry.
For example, what does it taste like?
What does squirrel taste like?
It's good, it's sweet.
It tastes like chicken.
(audience laughing)
It tastes like rabbit.
People still serve rabbit restaurants.
I've even seen rabbit served in-
So in Central Park, if I see a squirrel go by,
I should grab it.
Well, I don't eat that anymore,
but there's nothing better than possum under glass.
Is that true?
Do people eat possum?
One of my favorite shows of all time,
Beverly Hillbillies and Granny's always cooking up possum.
And I thought is that real?
Do people eat possum?
If you're really, really in bad shape you eat possum.
My dad never would let us eat possum.
He said that ain't nothing but a damn rat.
And it's true.
Then he said pass the squirrel.
(audience laughing)
I'm not eating that!
Mm, squirrel.
Like I say, you do what you do
when you're brought up like that.
Sure.
Now, what do you do?
Tell me what kind of things like growing up,
Tennessee, what'd you do for fun?
If you know, obviously not a lot of money
to go around and today a lot of people say kids are spoiled.
They get the video games and you know, movie theaters.
What did you do for fun?
Well, we had lots of homemade toys.
We had each other to play with, that's for sure.
We didn't have toys, but anyhow,
the big things for us was like to go
swimming at the suck hole.
It was a place, you know, at the river
that had a bunch of rocks.
We had one of those in Times Square
and then they cleaned it up.
(audience laughing)
They didn't like us to go
because there was like a bunch of rocks.
[Conan] A bunch of rocks.
And then underneath there were caves,
but it was like real deep, cold water.
And it was the best place in the world to swim,
but you could get sucked under.
And so everybody in the whole county
called it the old suck hole.
They even had baptizings down there.
But you could get pulled in.
It's like a giant toilet.
You could get pulled in underneath the rocks.
And it was dangerous.
Your parents didn't like you to go,
but you know how a bunch of rowdy kids are,
but we made it.
Sometimes I look back on that
and I wonder how we did, but it was a good life.
Sure.
And you now, things have gone so well for you.
I know that you're a sucker for infomercials.
You love infomercials and you love to buy,
like you buy too much of that stuff.
Is that true?
It's true, I have a weakness for it,
'cause as a kid, my grandmother was bedridden
and I used to help her, spend time with her,
brush her false teeth and take her bed pan out.
None of the other kids would do it,
but she used to order things for me out of the catalog.
And I just got hooked on that
as a little kid and the wish book.
So now I get on airplanes, all those gift magazines,
every infomercial, everything I see, I order it.
And I think when I'm seeing it that I can't live without it.
And then I get all this stuff and I'm think,
what on earth was I thinking?
I'm the same way.
When I fly on an airplane
they have that magazine and you're flipping through it.
And they'll say,
That's good stuff!
Your dog can eat processed cheese while you're away.
They have these crazy things that you can buy,
and it all looks good to me.
I know, and you order it.
Some of the stuff's real good,
but the biggest part of it's junk,
but I just have a weakness for that.
I think that a lot of country people do.
You want to have it.
You see it, you gotta.
Yeah.
Do you ever call up, you see it on TV
late at night and you call
and you're talking to somebody like send me that right now?
Do you ever tell him that you're Dolly Parton?
No, I tell them I'm Dolly Dean, which is my married name,
but I do order every exercise machine.
I just hang my clothes and my wigs on it.
I never use it.
None of us actually use them.
I use mine to dry pasta, you know?
It looks good, don't it?
Sure, oh yeah, I get it.
I'm just a sucker.
Talk about this, the new CD,
which of course has a patriotic theme, For God and Country.
Tell us about the record.
Well, actually, this is something
I've wanted to do for a long time,
and I think this is a great time to do it.
There's a lot of great gospel-type things in it, too,
like Peace in the Valley, Whispering Hope and a few things,
but a lot of fun things like Gee Ma, I Wanna Go Home,
Ballad of the Green Beret, God Bless the USA,
a lot of songs that I've written.
And so it's a very uplifting album,
and I thought it would be a good time.
It's almost like a little musical.
I talk a lot through it and kind of set up the songs
and why I did them and what I think they,
the importance of them.
[Conan] Sure.
So I'm going to be doing one a little later
that's off the album.
That's great.
I know you're going to leave now and come back
and sing for us, but I wish you could stay here
on the couch all night.
It's so nice having you here.
I wish you could just stay.
I wish you could stay for the rest of the show.
Well, I wish I could too.
I can't stay though.
I honestly wish I could stay,
but I'm gonna be doing a recording
with Nora Jones a little later,
so if I could stay here, I would.
Yeah, that'd be great.
It's just been so nice.
You sure you just can't stay for a little bit?
No, I can't stay, honest.
It'd be great for me, if you would just,
I would love it if you stayed.
I would stay, but
(musical chord plays)
♪ If I should stay ♪
♪ Well, I would only be in your way ♪
Can you hold it down over there?
♪ So I'll go ♪
♪ And yet I know ♪
♪ That I'll think of you ♪
♪ Each step of the way ♪
♪ Bittersweet ♪
(audience cheering)
♪ Memory ♪
♪ That's all I have ♪
♪ And all I'm taking with me ♪
[Dolly] That's beautiful!
♪ So goodbye ♪
♪ Please don't cry ♪
♪ We both know I'm not what you need ♪
♪ But I will always ♪
♪ Love you ♪
♪ I will always ♪
♪ Love you ♪
(Both vocalizing)
Dolly Parton, everybody.
She'll be back later in the show.