Dolly Parton Just Revealed Her Favorite Country Song of All Time—and Fans Couldn’t Agree More. ML

Key Points

• Dolly Parton calls George Jones’s “He Stopped Loving Her Today” her favorite country song.
• The song’s tragic story and Jones’s performance deeply moved Parton: “It touches every cell.”
• Despite initial doubts, the song became a Grammy-winning hit and streaming classic.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Dolly Parton is one of the most beloved songwriters of all time, having gifted the world with such timeless classics as “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” “Coat of Many Colors” and so many others. But what songs from other artists helped to influence Parton’s work? As it turns out, her favorite country tune of all time is one of the saddest ever written.

While Parton has raved about such contemporaries as Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson, she reserved some of her highest praise for legendary singer-songwriter George Jones and his classic 1980 song, “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

“To me, that song is so well written, but it touches every cell in your body, in your heart,” Parton said, according to Far Out magazine. “It’s just like he stopped loving her today, they hung that wreath upon the door.”

“He was never going to stop loving her in his lifetime,” Parton continued. “He had to die. It is so beautiful and, of course, George Jones is my favorite country singer in the world — always was, always will be. Nobody can tell that story like he did. So to me, that is the country classic of all time.”

In October 2010, Parton joined forces with Vince Gill and Keith Urban for a performance of “He Stopped Loving Her Today” at the Country Music Hall of Fame, delighting audiences with what Country Thang Daily called an “extraordinary” rendition of the tune.

George Jones didn’t want to sing ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’ at first

The story Jones tells in “He Stopped Loving Her Today” — written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putnam — is a tragic one to say the least: A man pledges to love a woman until the day he dies, even though she leaves him, and continues to hold out hope for years…until finally, he dies:

“He stopped loving her today
They placed a wreath upon his door
And soon they’ll carry him away
He stopped loving her today”

As American Songwriter reported, Jones initially found the song so tragic that he didn’t want to record it at all, telling producer Owen Bradley, “Nobody’ll buy that morbid son of a b—h.” Of course, he turned out to be wrong: “He Stopped Loving Her Today” shot to the top of the charts, earning Jones the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 1980 and sparking a major comeback for the singer. And fans are still listening to — and discovering — the haunting tear-jerker: At the time of this writing, “He Stopped Loving Her Today” has been streamed over 100 million times on Spotify.