Imagine hearing Elvis Presley’s voice sing “I’ll Always Love You.” It almost happened. And the reason it didn’t comes down to a publishing rights dispute that Dolly Parton has never forgotten.
Parton wrote the song, and it went to number one for her. Then Elvis came calling. He loved it and wanted to record his own version. Parton told BBC Radio that he even invited her to the studio to hear how it would sound.
But there was a catch. Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, wanted half of the publishing rights as a condition of the cover. For Parton, that was a dealbreaker.
“This is the most important copyright in my whole publishing company and I can’t do that,” she said.
The manager said the cover couldn’t move forward without the deal. And just like that, it was over.
Parton said she was heartbroken. She had wanted to hear Elvis’s voice sing her words. That wish never came true during his lifetime.
Then in 2023, Parton found her own way to close the chapter. She released a song called “I Dreamed About Elvis,” where the lyrics imagine a conversation between her and the late singer. Country artist Ronnie McDowell appears on the track, doing his best impression of Presley’s voice.
In the dream, the fictional Elvis sings: “I almost did one of yours, the one about true love / The ‘I Will Always Love You’ song, but the Colonel screwed that up.”
Parton’s response in the song: “Well, he sure did, but after all, this is my dream / It would be a dream come true if maybe you could sing it now.”
There is a sweet footnote to this story. Parton told BBC Radio that Priscilla Presley once shared something with her. Elvis had sung “I Will Always Love You” to Priscilla on the courthouse steps the day their divorce was finalized. Even without a recording, the song clearly meant something to him.
Of course, Whitney Houston’s 1992 cover of the song became a massive hit, arguably even bigger than Parton’s original. But that version with Elvis’s voice? It lives only in Dolly’s dream.