Pop culture icon Dolly Parton's lyrics match up with her positive persona, finds study

Dolly Parton's positive persona matches up with her song lyrics, a Wilfrid Laurier University study released this month has found.

The study used  what it described as special "linguistic inquiry and word count" software to tally the positive words in her music to help researchers quantify the mood of her songs.  

"So [Parton] talks about suicide, she talks about mental illness," psychology professor and study author Judy Eaton told CBC News.

"Nine to Five is a song about social injustice, so it's not that she's necessarily just thinking positive things, but we were interested in the way she uses words to describe those things."

Eaton said that overall, the lyrics of country and pop music has become more negative. 

"So we were interested to see whether Dolly sort of matches that downward trend of positivity and given her public persona of positivity, we kind of thought maybe she wouldn't," Eaton said.  

They found that Parton has been consistently positive over the more than 50 years she's been making music.  

"I think there's kind of a general feeling that the world should protect Dolly Parton at all costs, and I think her positivity and joy and radiance definitely contributes to that," said Amanda Kind, vocal coach and country music artist from Waterloo. 

Kind said that Parton's ability "to express really emotional and universal situations in ways that feel uplifting," is what draws her to Parton and the music. 

Kind wasn't surprised by the findings of the study, explaining that "the energy that she gives off in interviews and the way she talks about music and other artists is pretty much inherently positive all the time."

"She seems to be someone who generally looks for the joy in situations," Kind said.

Parton as a positive icon

Eaton said that her team —  which includes graduate student, Avnee Sharma, and Danielle Law, an associate psychology professor — are "positive psychologists" focusing on "what makes people thrive?" 

This focus led them to Parton as a subject. 

"As we were talking, we would be discussing things about positive psychology and what's a good model of flourishing?" said Eaton. "And Dolly's name kept coming up because she is such a great model of someone who really embraces positivity."

"She's just such a giver and such a person that truly lived and breathed being able to make a change in other people's lives," said Michelle Letwin, who is the president of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library branch. 

The library, in Guelph's Brant neighbourhood, promotes literacy by offering free books to youth under five years old. 

"So starting from her music and then using that stardom and that fame for her to make a difference is, I think, what makes her so iconic and such a lovely person and why she's standing the test of time and just being a part of multiple generations."