In 1980, Dolly Parton was filming her first Hollywood movie, 9 To 5, and between scenes she had an idea for the tune that would become the movie’s theme song.

A Song Born From Frustration

But her guitar was banned from the set—so she made the beat by strumming her acrylic nails together. The sound, she realized, was just like the typewriter used by her character, a married secretary who is constantly belittled and sexually harassed by her boss.

Excited, she ran over and sang the song to her co-stars Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, who was also the film’s producer. “Lily and I looked at each other and we had goosebumps,” Fonda said. “And we knew, this is not just a movie song, this is an anthem.”

Breaking Barriers and Charting New Ground

Released in November 1980, 9 To 5 became Parton’s only US number one as a solo artist, and earned her an Oscar nomination for best song. She loved to tell the fingernail story, but 9 To 5 has another legacy—for its powerful statements about working life and women’s place in the corporate world.

You can probably sing the hook off the top of your head. “Working 9 To 5 / What a way to make a living!” It’s jaunty and catchy. The sentiment is universal. Work sucks. But dig deeper and Dolly’s expressing real fury. “It’s a rich man’s game, no matter what they call it / And you spend your life putting money in his wallet,” she sings. “They just use your mind and they never give you credit.”

The lyrics tapped into real frustrations and gave working women a voice. But there’s a reason why you might not have noticed the anger that fuels Dolly’s song. She simply doesn’t sing it that way,even though she had every right to, having managed the sexism of the music industry from the age of 13.

Early Success and a Solo Breakthrough

Her early breakthrough came in 1967 when she was hired as the “girl singer” on The Porter Wagoner Show, a TV showcase for country singer Porter Wagoner that reached millions of viewers each week. Together, they released 21 hit duets including Just Someone I Used to Know, If Teardrops Were Pennies and Please Don’t Stop Loving Me.

But as Parton’s star rose, she began to outshine her co-star. Eventually, she realized she needed to strike out as a solo artist—writing I Will Always Love You as a letter of apology to her former mentor. He responded by suing her for breach of contract in 1979, demanding $3m (£2,2m). Wanting to avoid a lengthy court battle, Parton settled for about $1m.

“I made up my mind that if he could live with it, I could live without it,” she wrote in her autobiography. “I suppose Porter has done all right with it. I am neither his conscience nor his accountant.” It was typical of the star’s ability to radiate cheery goodwill that she never held a grudge against Wagoner, always crediting him with giving her a key career break, even after their relationship fell apart.

Nobody’s fool. But she was nobody’s fool. Take, for example, the battle over the rights to I Will Always Love You. After it hit number one in the country charts, Elvis Presley called,he loved the song 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 hard-nosed manager, Colonel Tom Parker, called Parton and told her Elvis wouldn’t record the song unless she handed over half of the lucrative publishing rights. “I said, ‘Well, that throws a new light on this. Because I can’t give you half the publishing. I’m gonna leave that to my family,'” Parton told Reba McEntire’s podcast in 2020. “And he said, ‘Well, then we can’t do it.’ And I cried all night.

“I mean, it was like the worst thing,” she told Country Music Television. “People were saying, ‘You’re nuts. It’s Elvis Presley. Hell, I’d give him all of it.’ I said, ‘I can’t.’ I always wondered what it would sound like. I know he would have killed it [in a good way].” But Parton had the last laugh. When Whitney Houston recorded her blockbuster version of I Will Always Love You for The Bodyguard soundtrack in 1992, the country star still owned the rights and earned “enough money to buy Graceland,” Presley’s mansion.

Instead, she invested the money in a black neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee, saying she thought it was an apt way to honor Houston’s legacy. That determination to stand up for herself, and to value her music as more than just a commodity, is an essential part of Parton’s legacy. Without her example, would Taylor Swift have stood up to the hedge funds who bought her back catalogue, re-recording her biggest hits to rob them of royalties? Perhaps not,but either way, Dolly approved. “Smart!” she said when asked about Swift’s masterplan. “She’s so smart, she’s so great, she’s genius. I mean really, look at what she’s doing! That’s amazing!”