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The sweetness of Dolly Parton's original version belies the independent, lone-wolf mindset that created it.

Having moved to Nashville from east Tennessee after leaving school in 1964, Parton found only middling success as a singer-songwriter before catching the eye of singer Bill Phillips, who duetted on her song Put it Off Until Tomorrow.

Country star Porter Wagoner then invited Parton to be the "girl singer" on his TV show - eventually signing her to his label and giving her the big break she craved.

Parton's first single on that label, a cover of Tom Paxton's The Last Thing on My Mind, was a duet with Wagoner. When it made the country top 10 in 1968, it sparked the beginning of a formidable musical partnership.

But by 1973, Parton wanted to make the stage and TV screens hers alone. "I had come to Nashville to be my own star," she told DJ Howard Stern in 2023.

"I really felt like I needed to move on. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life being a girl singer. I knew my destiny. I knew that I had to continue doing what I felt... drawn to do."

Making her mind up was one thing, breaking the news to Wagoner another.

Recalling the agony of conflicted emotions, she said: "How am I going to make him understand how much I appreciate everything, but that I have to go?

"I thought, well, what do you do best? You write songs. So I sat down and I wrote this song."

And so Parton's I Will Always Love You - an ode of heartfelt thanks beset with steely defiance - was born.

The next morning, she strode into Wagoner's office and told him to sit down. "I sang the song alone in his office - just me and my guitar," she told Stern.

Tears rolled down his face from behind the desk. "That's the best song you've ever wrote," he told her. "You can go if I can produce the song."...

Then Elvis called - he had heard I Will Always Love You and wanted to record a cover.

"You cannot imagine how excited I am about this," she told him. "This is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me as a songwriter."
...

But the night before the recording session, his notoriously tough manager, Colonel Tom Parker, called Parton and told her Presley wouldn't record the song unless she handed over half of the songwriting rights.

Displaying the same hard-nosed business savvy that saw her walk away from Wagoner to find solo success, Parton forced herself to say no.