Though it’s impolite to acknowledge age in most circles (especially southern ones), Dolly Parton is getting up there. The country singer turns 71 on January 19, but the most notable thing about the milestone may be how little it changes anything. She will never age out of being a national treasure, a crown jewel in America's rhinestone tiara—her sparkle hasn't diminished in over 50 years of performing.
In a culture that tends to cannibalize the women it loves most—our Lindsays, our Britneys, Parton’s goddaughter Miley—Parton has always kept an easy grip on her relationship with the public. You could argue that she did most of her living before avenues for gossip expanded online, but even when the National Enquirer was king, she was an open book.
Take her tattoos, for example, which have reached mythical status. For decades, people have sought evidence that Parton's permanently wearing long sleeves hinted at the many colorful tattoos that allegedly decorate her arms and torso. What exactly the tattoos, which she confirmed to Vanity Fair did exist, look like remains pretty much the one thing the woman has kept to herself.
"I don’t really like to make a big to-do of [the tattoos] because people make such a big damn deal over every little thing,” she said in a recent interview with Vanity Fair. “But most of the tattoos, when I first started, I was covering up some scars that I had, ‘cause I have a tendency to have keloid scar tissue, and I have a tendency where if I have any kind of scars anywhere then they kind of have a purple tinge that I can never get rid of. So mine are all pastels, what few that I have, and they’re meant to cover some scars. I’m not trying to make some big, bold statement.”
Not making a big, bold statement while making a big, bold statement must be a Parton-trademarked magic trick. During the election season, as fellow Nashville crossover artist Taylor Swift was criticized for staying silent on her choice for president, Parton reached deep into her Dolly joke book and found the right thing to say. “I think no matter if it’s Hillary [Clinton] or Donald Trump, we’re gonna be plagued with PMS either way. Presidential mood swings!” she told The New York Times last June.
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Reinvention is easy for her youngest fans—just look at how MySpace profiles turned into Tumblr pages, or the constant new identities for Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Katy Perry. Self-preservation is hard, and Parton is very good at self-preservation, maintaining over the decades a persona defined by butterflies, rhinestones, gay camp, and even some surprising twinges of darkness.
“I’m like an aunt or an older sister,” Dolly told Vanity Fair, explaining her longevity. “I’ve been around so long, like a family member. So I think a lot of children and their parents and even their grandparents have followed me through the years, and I’m kind of like a family member.”
Take this story, about the Tennessee warehouse that Parton affectionately calls her "arts and crap" building, which houses, among other things, a fan-made gift inspired by the death of Parton's baby brother—a baby inside a coffin. The death was poignantly depicted in Coat of Many Colors, a TV movie special based on Parton's early lie. "I thought wow—I know that they were so touched by that, and when I saw that it made me cry because it affected me in a very unusual way," Parton said.
Just imagine: in a Tennessee warehouse, among fan-art versions of the already big-wigged woman, there's a small coffin with a smaller doll that represents her late brother, and she loves it because it’s honest and thoughtful. (Somewhere right now, Cormac McCarthy felt a twinge of jealousy and isn’t sure why.) The scripture, the youthful progressiveness, the dark, the light, and the very, very bright diamond jewelry mingles in Dolly’s world comfortably. It’s something the most progressive Tumblr teen can appreciate just as much as a heartland Trump voter.
At 71, the singer has seven Grammys, 25 number one singles on the country charts, and Dollywood, a living, breathing monument to her that moonlights as an amusement park. At the end of the month, she'll present a lifetime achievement award to Lily Tomlin her co-star in her first-ever feature film, 9 to 5, at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Parton collected her own Lifetime Achievement Award at Academy of Country Music Awards last spring. She just came off a long stretch for her Pure & Simple tour that took her throughout North America. Her legacy is as stable as it ever was, and as long as she’s talking, we’re listening.
Additional reporting by Benjamin Lindsay.
