Most love songs reach the woman who inspired them on the radio, months later. Merle Haggard did not want to wait that long. Sometime around 1974, in the small hours of the morning, he picked up a phone in Nevada, called Dolly Parton’s house, and asked whoever answered to go and wake her up.
He had just written a song about her, and he wanted her to hear it first.
A Sleepless Night in Reno
Merle Haggard was playing a run of shows at Harrah’s in Nevada. He had been up all night writing, and by the early hours of the morning he had new songs on his mind. He wrote the one that mattered most in Reno, and it was about Dolly Parton.
Around 3:30 in the morning, he decided it could not wait for daylight.
A woman answered at Dolly’s house and told him Dolly was asleep. Merle asked her to wake Dolly anyway. After a while, Dolly Parton came to the phone, and Merle Haggard sang her the song.
He later told the story to Ralph Emery, and he wrote about that call in his 1981 autobiography, Sing Me Back Home. Looking back, he admitted one thing he regretted about doing it over the phone:
“I would have given anything to have seen her face.”
How Merle Haggard Fell for Dolly Parton
The feelings behind that phone call had been building for a while. In the mid-1970s, Dolly Parton had just stepped away from Porter Wagoner to build her own career, and she spent time on the road opening for Merle Haggard, one of the biggest concert draws in country music. Their buses often traveled together, and the two of them spent long hours talking about music and life.
Merle Haggard had also recorded a song Dolly Parton wrote, “Kentucky Gambler,” and it went to No. 1 for him. Somewhere along the way, he realized he was in love with her. In his memoir, he put it plainly:
“I would have carved ‘Merle loves Dolly’ on every damn tree in the country if she’d asked me to.”
There was one big problem. Both of them were married, Dolly Parton to Carl Dean and Merle Haggard to Bonnie Owens. According to Merle’s own account, Dolly told him, “I’m married, Merle. Don’t you understand that I love Carl?”
The Song He Sang Over the Phone
The song Merle Haggard sang to Dolly Parton that morning was “Always Wanting You.”
He recorded it on November 26, 1974. Capitol released it as a single on February 3, 1975. By April 12, 1975, it was the No. 1 song on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, and it stayed at the top for two weeks. It was the twentieth No. 1 single for Merle Haggard and The Strangers.
Country fans did not need to be told who the song was about. It became one of the worst-kept secrets in country music.
How Dolly Parton Answered
Dolly Parton did not give in, but she never pushed Merle Haggard away either. She stayed married to Carl Dean, and over the years she spoke about Merle Haggard with warmth. She called him a special friend and said it was very sweet of him to tell her he cared that much.
After Merle Haggard died on April 6, 2016, his 79th birthday, Dolly Parton summed up what he had meant to her in a few simple words:
“I loved him like a brother.”
A Love Song That Belonged to Everyone
“Always Wanting You” was written for one person and first sung to her over a telephone line in the middle of the night. Within a few months, it was playing on radios across America, and listeners heard their own longing in it.
That is the strange gift of a great country song. Merle Haggard never got the answer he hoped for that morning. But the song he could not keep to himself became one of the most honest love songs he ever recorded.
Do you remember the first time you heard “Always Wanting You”? Did you know the story behind it? We would love to hear from you.