Dolly Parton didn't just write hits — she created an American songbook

Until her passing on Tuesday, Dolly Parton may have been the only living person truly worthy of that old-fashioned designation, "America's Sweetheart." Her immense musical talent guaranteed her top-tier standing in country music and propelled her into a level of mainstream success that only a handful of her peers would match. Her charm, depth, beauty, sense of humor and radiant goodness made her a star across seven turbulent decades.

She was, as many tributes published since her death have noted, the one person whose presence everyone welcomed, no matter what hostilities their politics or social status otherwise inspired. Parton was our favorite aunt, our imaginary president. She was also the composer of a career's worth of indelible hits that emblematized America's cultural life, and particularly the changing experiences of women, in ways that place her in an elite category: a songwriter whose greatest works, considered together, are their own version of the American songbook.

Country singer Dolly Parton performs onstage, circa 1977. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images hide caption

The story of this country as told through Parton's best-known songs begins in the mid-1960s, when many aspects of the country she knew and loved so well were in flux. Her first charting country single, 1967's "Dumb Blonde," set the tone for her amiable but uncompromising version of women's liberation, distilling the frustration of countless underestimated women in the home and the workplace into an actionable rallying cry.

This was one aspect of Parton, the adventurer whose insistent self-respect would carry her beyond any limitations others tried to impose on her. The other, the keeper of home truths, surfaced in 1971's "Coat of Many Colors," an expertly embroidered portrait of Appalachian rural life that also stands as one of the most powerful reminders of poor people's dignity to ever grace the airwaves. With those two singles and others that quickly followed, like 1972's cozily erotic "Touch Your Woman" and the same year's pastoral "My Tennessee Mountain Home," Parton — the rare Nashville songwriter who wrote her greatest songs alone — established the multifaceted world view that made her music so mobile, such a popular well for other artists to tap for inspiration, and so insightful about America.

Album cover for "Jolene" by Dolly Parton which was released in 1974. Donaldson Collection/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives hide caption

Parton's legend was secured in 1973, when she released "Jolene," a song that transcended its moment by perfectly capturing the primal intensity of insecure romantic desire. With a melody redolent of a century of folk ballads and, as Parton told NPR in 2008, a chorus "even a first-grader or a baby could sing," this true-ish tale of rivalry among women is fluid enough that a man could take it on, as Jack White did in The White Stripes' 2001 version. "Jolene" is a murder ballad whose victims all survive, a cry of revenge in the face of betrayal that puts a woman in charge and unexpectedly creates a bond between two rivals. Beyoncé's version of the song on her Grammy-winning country album Cowboy Carter , blessed by Parton, heated up that eroticism to show that "Jolene" is as much about one woman appreciating another as about the murderous restrictions of monogamy.

"Jolene" was, in fact, one of the less dramatic songs Parton wrote in her gothic mode, a style that allowed her to expose many of the burdens women endure under patriarchy; her early songs that never made it to the Top 40 dared to broach topics like emotional abuse, stillbirth, forced institutionalization, a birthmother's grief and a pregnant, abandoned lover's suicide. Her deep knowledge of the dark lent substance to the songs that expressed her belief in transcendence. The masterpiece that she released the following year showed her rising upward with unrivaled grace. Like "Jolene," the majestic "I Will Always Love You" is ripe with particulars and anchored in the country realm of adult dreams and regrets, but is open-ended enough to invite myriad interpretations. Parton wrote it as a forgiving farewell to Porter Wagoner, the duet partner who had helped launch her career but also tried to restrict her when her genius took her beyond their partnership.