Forever No. 1: Dolly Parton, ‘9 to 5’
Categoria: Musica
Good as Parton was playing Doralee in her breakout film role, her biggest contribution to the '9 to 5' movie may have been writing and performing its letter-perfect title song.
Por Billboard | 27/08/2026
Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club. Here, we honor the late, great Dolly Parton, whose workers anthem “9 to 5” reached No. 1 in February 1981. Related Dolly Parton, One of Country Music’s Biggest & Brightest Icons, Dies at 80 Dolly Parton’s 25 Best Songs: Critics’ Picks Dolly Parton’s Half-Century Hot 100 Legacy: ‘9 to 5,’ ‘Islands in the Stream’ & More Dolly Parton was well on her way to becoming a crossover superstar when the movie 9 to 5 was released in December 1980. She had reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1978 with “Here You Come Again,” a winsome pop song written by the great team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil . But 9 to 5 took her to another level. She more than held her own with two superstars, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin . She was great in her role as Doralee Rhodes, a secretary who is perennially harassed by her boss from hell, Frank Hart (played by Dabney Coleman ). But her biggest contribution to the film may have been writing and performing its letter-perfect title song. It was one of the biggest and best hits that Parton, who died on Tuesday (Aug. 26) at age 80, ever had. The song suits the film perfectly – it’s uptempo, which is ideal for a comedy. It distills and advances the film’s central theme – how workers are often taken advantage of in the workplace. (Both the film and the song owe their titles to 9to5, an organization founded in 1973 to bring about fair pay and equal treatment for women in the workplace.) But the song is more nuanced than, say, Johnny Paycheck’s recording of David Allan Coe’s “Take This Job and Shove It,” another country crossover hit that reached No. 1 on Hot Country Songs in January 1978. Parton wisely opened the song with a verse that is completely universal about worklife, saving more specific complaints for later. She opens with clever rhymes and witty wordplay: “Tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen/ Pour myself a cup of ambition/ And yawn and stretch and try to come to life.” In the chorus, she begins the litany of complaints: “Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’/ Barely getting by, it’s all takin’ and no givin’/ They just use your mind and they never give you credit…” But the very next line contains a glimmer of hope: “It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.” The clear implication: don’t let it. (Parton also lays in hopeful messages in the second verse: “But you’ve got dreams he’ll never take away/ In the same boat with a lot of your friends/ Waitin’ for the day your ship’ll come in/ And the tide’s gonna turn an’ it’s all gonna roll your way.”) The song mixes blunt talk that almost makes Parton sound like a union organizer (“It’s a rich ma