Dolly Parton wrote and released "Shattered Image" in 1976, an unusually sharp response to tabloid gossip about her and her family. The track appeared on her seventeenth studio album, All I Can Do, and stands out from her typically warm public persona as a pointed rebuke to those spreading unfounded rumours, using imagery such as "if you live in a glass house, don't throw stones" to call out hypocrisy.

Released as the album's third single, "Shattered Image" failed to chart, overshadowed by the title track, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Parton has since said she can tolerate gossip about herself but is far less forgiving when it involves people she loves, including her late husband Carl Dean, who was sometimes falsely rumoured not to exist. In a 2002 interview she also suggested the song's message was universal, comparing it to neighbours throwing rocks while living in their own glass houses, and noted her enduring fondness for its Cajun-influenced sound.