(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
As much as it’s extremely morbid to think about our own mortality, death is one certainty which will come to us all. For this reason, most music fans have at least contemplated the playlist, which will be aired on the day of their funeral, and legendary singer-songwriter Dolly Parton is no different.
Parton’s reasoning for her song choice is sentimental to her family. While she’s not optimistic that those she leaves behind will fulfil her promise, the country icon is adamant she wants ‘If We Never Meet Again’ to be played out as she waves goodbye to planet Earth. The song is a reminder of her religious background and was also sung by mourners at her father’s funeral.
During a conversation with EW in 2014, Parton made her wishes known but feared they’d instead choose her song ‘I Will Always Love You’, which was popularised by Whitney Houston. Parton said: “I’m sure they’ll be playing ‘I Will Always Love You’ when I die, just like they did with Whitney Houston. When they picked her coffin up and started in on that song, I started to cry, and I thought, ‘Oh my Lord.’ That’s when it hit me that she was really gone.”
She continued: “But there’s a song called ‘If We Never Meet Again’. It’s an old country-gospel church song that talks about if we never meet again this side of heaven, I will meet you on that beautiful shore. ‘Where the charming roses bloom forever and where separations come no more.; That was my daddy’s favourite. We did sing it at his funeral, and I would like it to be sung at mine.”
Parton’s father died in 2000, but she’d already interpolated ‘If We Never Meet Again’ into a song decades before her family sang the song in unison at his funeral. In her 1974 track ‘Sacred Memories’, which appeared on the album Love Like A Butterfly, Parton included the same lyric she later mentioned to EW.
On the aforementioned track, Parton sings: “They were singing Lord I’m coming on when I got saved, And when I got baptised they sang amazing grace, And oh how sweet the sound when everybody would join in, And sang my favourite song if we never meet again, Where the charming roses bloom forever and where separation comes no more, If we never meet again this side of heaven I will meet you on that beautiful shore.”
The church was Parton’s introduction to the world of music. Therefore, it’s only fitting that as her casket is lowered, ‘If We Never Meet Again’ is bellowed out by those who knew her best, which brings her life to a full circle moment.
