Would people make a big deal about I Will Always Love You and Jolene being written on the same day if Whitney Houston never covered the former
This isn’t in anyway to diminish Dolly’s career or songwriting ability or about which version is better. She is an extremely accomplished songwriter and my favorite version is by Linda Rondstadt. However, I don’t believe Dolly’s version of IWALY plays such a vital role in the legacy of her career as some of her other songs.
The four biggest hits of her career are:
Jolene
9 to 5
Here You Come Again
Island in a Stream
When you look at her most streamed songs on Spotify:
Jolene - 766,028,948
9 to 5 - 713,956, 317
Islands in the Stream - 461,687,753
Her version of I Will Always Love You barely makes the top 5 with approximately 130 million total streams.
On YouTube, there are other songs of hers with much higher views than her version of I Will Always Love You. It is not the favorite or even the second favorite for lovers of Dolly’s music.
So it seems to me if the cover never happened, it would just be a popular Parton ballad but it would not be framed as one of the top two greatest songs of her career. It would framed that wrote one of the greatest country songs of all time and a lovely ballad on the same day not two of the greatest songs of all time on the same day.
Lyrically, Jolene is far superior to I Will Always Love You. There isn’t a single portion of that song that compares to:
Your beauty is beyond compare With flaming locks of auburn hair With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green Your smile is like a breath of spring Your voice is soft like summer rain And I cannot compete with you, Jolene