Dolly Parton isn’t ready to wrap up her memorable, 50-plus-year career as a working musician.
The iconic Jolene singer, in an interview with Greatest Hits Radio’s Ken Bruce, declared that if you want your dreams to come true then you have to be “responsible” with them. She then ruled out retirement.
“I’m not one to sit around doin’ nothin’. I would never retire. I’ll just hopefully drop dead in the middle of a song onstage someday, hopefully one I’ve written,” the 77-year-old musician said.
“But anyhow, that’s how I hope to go, we don’t have much of a choice in that but as long as I’m able to work, as long as my health is good and my husband is good, the only way that I would ever slow down or stop would be for that reason. But in the meantime I’m going to make hay while the sun shines.”
Parton, who is set to release her 49th solo studio album Rockstar in November, has brushed off the possibility of retirement in the past too.
The singer told AARP The Magazine in 2009 that she’ll be making records even if she has to “sell them out of the trunk of my car.”
She told Pollstar magazine last year that she doesn’t think she would tour again, adding that she’s up to shows “here and there.”
“I have no intention of going on a full-blown tour anymore,” she said.
“I’ve done that my whole life, and it takes so much time and energy. I like to stay a little closer to home with my husband.”