Beyond the wigs, there was always Dolly Parton’s wondrous wit and wisdom

Whenever Dolly Parton was asked about Whitney Houston’s success with I Will Always Love You - a song Parton had written decades before Houston turned it into a global mega-hit - she would always smile and remark cheekily that as the songwriter, the royalties were hers. “She can have the credit, I’ll just take the cash,” Parton, who has died aged 80, would joke.

As a singer, Parton’s talent is almost unparalleled. We will, in the decades to come, talk about her in the same breath as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Madonna. She was a global icon: musically, culturally, stylistically … and she had a hell of a way with words to boot. On top of everything else, Dolly Parton was sharp talker.

“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain,” she quipped. “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”

“My songs are like my children; I expect them to support me when I’m old.”

“You’d be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!” The list of quotations goes on.

Of her very distinct structure, and noticeable bosom, she once quipped: “I was the first woman to burn my bra—it took the fire department four days to put it out.”

But Parton was also a source of great wisdom. “Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life,” she said. “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.” “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.” “Find out who you are. And do it on purpose.”

It is perhaps unsurprising that Parton, who was raised in poverty in a remote mountain town, found understanding through words and music. As a child, she had little else. But among the songs of melancholy, and heartbreak and longing, there was always great humour.

“I think most country people, and certainly entertainers like myself, I think comedy is part of our being because it’s kind of what helps you through the hard times growing up,” Parton once said. “We made more fun of stuff that you shouldn’t even laugh at, but that was the funniest stuff to us because we’d try to find the humour in it.”

Parton was infamously self-deprecating, and the first to make a joke about fashion gaffe, or her famous bust, before somebody else got in before her.

“I honestly have designers at some of these awards show pay me not to say who designed my gown,” she said once to talk show host Regis Philbin, as she proudly pointed to a magazine that put her at the top of the “worst dressed” list. “I would say I have walked the red carpet and I have worn it,” she quipped. Zinger. “I bet I’m happier than that guy that wrote that, and I’m glad that he came out of his closet long enough to look in mine,” she added. Double zinger.

And another, on her use of wigs. How long does it take to do your hair, the interviewer asked. “I wouldn’t know. I’m never there,” Parton shot back.