Dolly Parton Reduced Stephen Colbert to Tears With a Song From Her Childhood
Dolly Parton only needed a few lines of an old folk song to bring Stephen Colbert to tears.
During her appearance on The Late Show on Tuesday, October 20, 2020, Parton was discussing the music she heard growing up when she unexpectedly began singing “Bury Me Beneath the Willow,” a traditional song her mother used to perform. The emotional rendition quickly overwhelmed Colbert, who removed his glasses and wiped away tears.
A childhood song catches Colbert off guard
Parton had been explaining how deeply her mother influenced her relationship with music. As a child, she heard her mother sing traditional folk songs around the house, often performing them without accompaniment.
Many of those songs carried melancholy stories. Parton remembered them as “plum pitiful,” a fitting description for the heartbreaking material she heard as a child.
Among those songs was “Bury Me Beneath the Willow,” a folk tune also famously recorded by the Carter Family. Its story centers on a woman whose fiancé leaves her at the altar, leading her to contemplate suicide.
While discussing the song, Parton simply started singing it herself, without any musical accompaniment.
The performance was completely unexpected. Parton continued through the song as Colbert’s reaction became increasingly emotional. By the end of the second verse, he was visibly crying.
Parton noticed immediately.
“Aw, you’re crying?” she teased before continuing to sing.
“You got under my trip wire”
Rather than stopping when she realized Colbert was tearing up, Parton carried on with the song. When she finally finished, she joked that she had better stop before he cried so much that he could no longer finish the program.
Colbert, still wiping his eyes and trying to laugh through the moment, explained that the performance had caught him at an emotional point.
“Like a lot of Americans, I’m under a lot of stress right now, Dolly,” he told her, adding that she had “got under my trip wire.”
He then acknowledged simply that the performance was beautiful.
The reaction made sense in the context of what Parton had just shared. The song was connected to memories of her mother and to the music that helped shape Parton’s own lifelong relationship with songwriting.
Parton reflects on her songwriting career
The emotional performance came during a conversation about Parton’s upcoming book, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics, which explores her work as a songwriter and the stories behind her music.
The interview also turned toward the songs Parton had been writing more recently. Among them were songs inspired by people’s struggles during the coronavirus pandemic, reflecting the difficult circumstances surrounding the interview in 2020.
Parton also revealed which three songs from her own catalog she considered her favorites: “Coat of Many Colors,” “I Will Always Love You,” and the lesser-known “Down From Dover.”
That combination of deeply personal memories, songwriting history and an unplanned performance turned an ordinary interview into one of the more memorable moments of Parton’s appearance on The Late Show.
A song her mother once sang to her had found its way into a late-night television conversation decades later, and this time it was Stephen Colbert who found himself unable to hold back the tears.