The Story Of Dolly Parton’s First Written Song At 5 Years Old

Growing up in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, Dolly Parton lived the kind of simple country life she’s always sung about. Her family grew their own corn, and Dolly and her sister Rachel would help their dad, Lee, harvest it. They’d gather the fresh corn, prepare it for meals, and save the dried ears for winter.

Dolly recalled:

“We had fresh corn on the cob, roasting ears, as they call ’em, cream-style corn that we would scrape off the cob.
“We also shucked that corn when it dried in the wintertime, and Daddy would take it down to the gristmill to grind into cornmeal. We had big barrels of our own cornmeal that Mama used to cook cornbread all through the winter.”

Dolly’s connection to cornmeal ran even deeper. When she was born in 1946, her parents paid Dr. Robert F. Thomas—the doctor who delivered her—with a sack of cornmeal. Years later, she honored him by building a chapel named after him at Dollywood in 1973, the same year he passed away. That year, she also wrote a song about him for her album My Tennessee Mountain Home.

Tassel Top: Dolly’s First Muse

Long before Dolly became a global icon, she was already singing and making up lyrics as a young child. At age five, her parents made her a handmade doll using a corncob for the body. Her dad burned little eyes into it with a hot poker, and her mom, Avie Lee, dressed it in corn husks and added corn silk for hair. Dolly said:

“She put a little dress on it made out of corn shucks, and she made some corn silk hair.
“So naturally, I named her Tassel Top.”

‘Even If You’re Just a Cob’

Dolly loved her doll so much that she wrote a song about her. Too young to read or write, she sang the lyrics while her mom wrote them down as Dolly performed into a tin can microphone. The lyrics went:

Little tiny tasseltop,
I love you an awful lot
Corn silk hair and big brown eyes
How you make me smile
Little tiny tasseltop
You’re the only friend I’ve got
Hope you never go away
I want you to stay
You’re my tiny tassel top
You’re my favorite-est doll
Even if you’re just a cob
I want you to stay

Dolly remembered:

“Mama was so fascinated that I could rhyme, and she kept it.
“I didn’t remember it until years later. Of course, I know it now, but at the time, I faintly remembered it.”

Even then, Dolly was already writing her story in song.