Dolly Parton, who died on 25 August 2026 at the age of 80 following a brief illness with cancer, had planned key aspects of her musical legacy long before her death, including the song she wanted played at her funeral. Rather than her signature hit "I Will Always Love You," Parton chose the country-gospel hymn "If We Never Meet Again" for her own send-off, a song that held deep personal significance as it had also been played at her father's funeral. The revelation, made in a 2014 interview, underscores how thoughtfully the country music icon approached her own mortality and the way she wished to be remembered.

Parton's forward planning extended beyond her funeral: in 2015, aged 69, she wrote and recorded an unreleased song titled "My Place in History," which she sealed inside a locked chestnut box at Dollywood's DreamMore Resort in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The box, containing a CD and CD player, is not to be opened until 19 January 2046, what would have been her 100th birthday, and Parton had joked in her 2020 book about hoping the recording would still play by then. Her representatives confirmed she requested a small, private funeral for immediate family, and her nephew revealed she wished to be buried in a "beautiful bed of plush cotton."