{"id":3804,"date":"2026-09-02T16:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T16:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/?p=3804"},"modified":"2026-09-02T16:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T16:50:13","slug":"the-heartbreaking-true-story-behind-the-song-dolly-parton-wanted-played-at-her-funeral-if-we-never-meet-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/?p=3804","title":{"rendered":"The Heartbreaking True Story Behind the Song Dolly Parton Wanted Played at Her Funeral, \u201cIf We Never Meet Again\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Twelve years before her reported death on August 25, 2026, Dolly Parton revealed the song she wanted played at her funeral. <strong>The song was the beloved country-gospel classic, \u201cIf We Never Meet Again.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a 2014 interview with <em>Entertainment Weekly<\/em>, Dolly explained that the song held a deeply personal meaning for her because it was her father\u2019s favorite. She shared, <em>\u201cWe did sing it at his funeral, and I would like it to be sung at mine.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although Dolly never released her own studio recording of \u201cIf We Never Meet Again,\u201d video footage exists of her performing the emotional song live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dolly Parton If We Never Meet Again This Side Of Heaven\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YRCYBhVq_kg?start=1&amp;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Twelve years before her reported death on August 25, 2026, Dolly Parton revealed the song she wanted played at her funeral. The song was the <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/?p=3804\" title=\"The Heartbreaking True Story Behind the Song Dolly Parton Wanted Played at Her Funeral, \u201cIf We Never Meet Again\u201d\">[&#8230;]<\/a> <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/?p=3804\">CONTINUE READING >>><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3760,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3804"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3805,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804\/revisions\/3805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}