Dolly Parton claims she would rather “drop dead in the middle of a song on stage” than retire

Dolly Parton has expressed her reluctance to give up live shows — saying that she would rather “drop dead” onstage than retire.

The 77-year-old country icon was speaking as part of a new interview on Wednesday (July 12), when she admitted that she has no intention of slowing down her music career anytime soon.

“‘I would never retire!” the ‘Jolene’ singer stated, appearing on Ken Bruce’s Greatest Hits Radio. “I would hopefully drop dead in the middle of a song on stage someday – and hopefully one I’ve written.”

“That’s how I hope to go,” she added. “I don’t have much of a choice in that but, in the meantime, I’m going to make hay while the sun shines.”

Although the country star shared her refusal to give up live shows, she did confirm that her days of extensive touring are over and that she would rather focus on fewer “special” appearances than embark on an endless string of live dates.

“I’m not touring anymore but I will continue to do special shows here and there now and then like a long weekend or festival shows,” she said. “But as far as touring I think those days are pretty much behind me… you have to stay gone so long on a tour to make it productive and prosperous and that’s a lot of time at my age – I ain’t got no years to waste!”

The discussion came ahead of Parton’s upcoming rock album, which is set for release later this year and will feature contributions from some of the biggest names in rock.

Announced last year, the LP — titled ‘Rockstar’ — was revealed to be a mix of original tracks, as well as covers of Prince, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd and more.

Set to arrive in November via Butterfly Records and Big Machine, the tracklist will feature many of the greats including Sting, Stevie Nicks, Debbie Harry, Steve Perry, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts and others. Last month, the singer released the single ‘Bygones’ from the album — which sees her team up with Judas Priest’s Rob Halford and Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx.

Another single, ‘Magic Man’, was around the same time as ‘Bygones’: a duet between Parton and Heart singer Ann Wilson and is dedicated to Parton’s husband Carl.

Elsewhere in the interview with Bruce, the ‘Islands In The Stream’ singer admitted that she would like to “have a whole TV series of my life”, titled The Life Of Many Colours.

According to her, she would want the series to reveal “stuff that people haven’t seen or heard about me and where I come from and how I got to be how and who I am. The bad, the good and the ugly!”

She also confirmed she would also like to explore more avenues going forward: “[I’d like to] just host more TV shows, do more movies. I want to have my own line of make-up, own line of wigs and clothes… Once you get to a certain place in your career you get a lot of offers and some of them are just really hard to turn down!”

In other Dolly Parton news, the artist recently revealed that although she is interested in exploring various new opportunities going forward, she wouldn’t entertain the idea of having her own AI hologram because she doesn’t want to “leave my soul on Earth”.

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