Although it sounds like a traditional love song, Dolly Parton’s 1973 song, “I Will Always Love You” was written when Dolly decided to part ways with her mentor and partner, Porter Wagoner.

Dolly owed much of her early success to Porter.  In 1966, he cast the then-obscure singer on his popular Nashville syndicated television program, The Porter Wagoner Show, and the two became a well-known vocal duo throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“I was trying to get away on my own because I had promised to stay with Porter's show for five years.  I had been there for seven,” she said. "And we fought a lot.  We were very much alike.  We were both stubborn.  We both believed that we knew what was best for us.

She continued, "I thought, 'He's never going to listen.  He's just going to bitch every day that I go in to talk about this.”  So, I thought, 'Well, why don't you do what you do best?  Why don't you just write this song?'  Because I knew at that time I was going to go, no matter what.  So, I went home and out of a very emotional place in me at that time, I wrote the song, “I Will Always Love You.”

"It's saying, 'Just because I'm going don't mean I won't love you.  I appreciate you and I hope you do great, and I appreciate everything you've done, but I'm out of here,'" she explained.  [That's] basically what I was saying.  And I took it in the next morning. I said, 'Sit down, Porter. I've written this song, and I want you to hear it.'  So, I did sing it.  And he got emotional.  "When I finished, he said, 'Well, hell!  If you feel that strong about it, just go on — providing I get to produce that record because that's the best song you ever wrote.'" She recorded it in RCA Studio B in Nashville on June 12, 1973.

The song climbed to No. 1 on the country chart in 1974.  Eight years later, a new version she recorded for her film, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, peaked atop that chart, too.  However, the soaring ballad exploded on the radio when Whitney Houston sang it in The Bodyguard, the 1992 movie produced by Kevin Costner, who also starred opposite Houston.

Houston was originally going to record a cover of Jimmy Ruffin's, 'What Becomes of the Brokenhearted', as the lead single, but when it was discovered that it was to be used for the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, Whitney requested a different song.

It was Costner who suggested 'I Will Always Love You', playing her Linda Ronstadt's version from her 1975 “Prisoner In Disguise” album.

Kevin Costner and his secretary are the ones that loved the song," Parton said. “And so, they asked me about the song, and I sent it.  I didn't hear anything more."

In time, Parton did hear Houston's version on her car radio -- "and about had a fit," she said.

"They started out with it a cappella, and I thought, 'That sounds familiar -- "If I should stay ...."' And it didn't hit me. It was just one of those things where [you think], ' What is that?' And, then all the sudden, when she started singing, 'I will always love you,' I just about wrecked the car," Parton said.

Various Sources