DollyParton

While Dolly Parton ranks as one of the most iconic artists in music, her song “Coat of Many Colors" ranks as her most definitive song.

“It’s about a philosophy and attitude and a feeling.” The irony is obvious — using a tag from a suit worn to denote onstage opulence to write a song about a piece of clothing made from scraps. In 2011, Parton’s recording was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry list of recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.” It’s been immortalized in other formats as well, including a 1996 picture book published by HarperCollins Children’s Books and a TV movie broadcast on NBC in December 2015. Her mother was given a collection of rags of various colors and subsequently used it to sew her daughter, Dolly, a multi-hued coat while relaying to her a Bible story about Jacob giving his favorite son Joseph his own coat of many colors. “That story was very important to me,” Parton told an interviewer many years later. Indeed, few songs share such singular sentiments and reveal as much about the artist that offers them.