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Happy Mother's Day!
For a week now, I've been trying to find a "Great Song of the '70s" that pays tribute to moms. No problem, right? Wrong!
Sure, there are songs with Mother or Mama in the TITLE (Examples: "Mother & Child Reunion by Paul Simon, "Mama Can't Buy You Love" by Elton John, etc...) but they don't fit with the holiday at all...
But then I remembered the song we highlighted last Mother's Day, and realized it's probably the best "Mom" song of the '70s--and one of the best ever: "Coat of Many Colors" by Dolly Parton.
So, with that in mind, I'm re-running last year's post:
When Dolly Parton was a little girl, her family was extremely poor. Dolly's mama worked overtime sewing clothes for Dolly and her siblings. She was also quite religious.
One day, as she was sewing together a patchwork coat for Dolly, she recited the Biblical story of Joseph and his coat of many colors (Genesis 37:3).
When the coat was finished, Dolly rushed to school to show it off...but the kids laughed and made fun of her coat of rags.
Needless to say, this hurtful little episode stuck with Dolly for a long time.
Several years later--in 1971--she was on a concert tour with her partner Porter Wagoner, and while riding the tour bus, the idea of writing a song about the incident came to her in a flash.
Dolly couldn't find a blank sheet of paper, so she grabbed one of Porter's dry cleaning receipts and wrote it all down.
Before long, she had recorded the song, made it the title cut of her next album, and when "Coat of Many Colors" was released as a single, it reached #4 on Billboard's Country Chart.
And Porter had the dry cleaning receipt framed.
Over the past 50+ years, "Coat of Many Colors" has been recognized for being the "Great Song" that it is.
In 2011, the song was added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry list of recordings that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States."
And in the 2021 revamp of Rolling Stone's Top 500 Songs of All Time, "Coat of Many Colors" came in at #263.
Today, a newer version of the coat (also made by Dolly's mama) is displayed at the Chasing Rainbows Museum at Dollywood, and hanging next to it...is Porter's dry cleaning receipt.
TRIVIA: Dolly also has written a final verse of the song that she has never recorded: "Through life I've remained happy and good luck is on my side. I have everything that anyone could ever want from life. But nothing is as precious as my mama's memory, and my coat of many colors that mama made for me."
In 2015, Dolly produced a film based on the story, Here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2hmOtbJxaM
"Coat of Many Colors" by Dolly Parton: A "Great Song" for Mother's Day...from 1971!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyP0Sy9KFf0
Tomorrow: Harry Chapin sings about my son & me. Coming Jun1: Great Songs of the '80s!
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