Dolly Parton was married since the early days of her career in country music, but she joked that this never stopped her from flirting. It also hasn’t stopped people from flirting with — or even falling for — the “I Will Always Love You” singer. One of these people was country legend Merle Haggard. He said he became so infatuated with her that he couldn’t think of anything else. He wrote a song about her that he demanded she hear in the early hours of the morning.

A country legend called Dolly Parton in the middle of the night

Haggard fell for Parton while they were on a joint tour, and his crush quickly spiraled into full-blown obsession. He admitted that he “didn’t always use good sense” when it came to her. An example of this came after he wrote the song “Always Wanting You” about her. Once he finished, he called her, regardless of the fact that it was 3 a.m. 

Haggard got through to Parton’s housekeeper, who initially refused to put her on the phone. He continued to demand to speak to her, though, and Parton eventually picked up.

“’Dolly, listen to my song.’ Hell, I was almost begging,’” he wrote in his book Sing Me Back Home: My Story, adding, “‘I wrote it for you. I been sittin’ here in this goddamned hotel room with my grass and my guitar, and I wrote one of the dangest songs you ever heard. I want you to be the first one to hear it. It’s the least you can do, Dolly, hell, it’s your song. It’s about my feelin’s for you.”

Despite the hour and Parton’s continued insistence that things would never happen between them, she agreed to listen to the song.

“I could tell that she was just humoring me,” Haggard wrote. “She knew neither of us would get any rest till she let me sing my song.”

He played the full song for her through the phone, but he couldn’t remember her reaction to it.

“By the time I finished, my mind had cancelled out on me,” he wrote. “I don’t even remember what she said, if anything. Long after she hung up, I sat holding the receiver in my hand. Finally, I was aware of another voice. ‘Sir, this is the operator. You’ve been disconnected.’ You got that right, lady.”

Haggard later found his behavior towards Parton embarrassing, but still thought “Always Wanting You” was one of the best songs he ever wrote.