With today (January 19th) being Dolly Parton's birthday, the folks over at the Oxford Dictionary Blog did a study of the words in her music for her entire career. It starts in 1965 (with her duets with Porter Wagoner), through her pop/main stream success in the 70s-80s, and her return to her roots in bluegrass in the 90's through today. Over 42 albums were reviewed. A couple of interesting quotes from the article:

• It’s noticeable that the lyrics tend to contain shorter words when they are aimed at the pop charts; during her return to bluegrass at the very end of the 1990s and onwards, the word length increases significantly (not least the word bluegrass itself).
• But perhaps most significantly, to some extent the tone and topic of her songs hasn’t changed all that much over the decades. At the beginning of her career we see she is singing about being hurt and tired; in recent years she’s sung about sacrifice and missing. As a couple of words at the bottom right of the table serendipitously put it, nothing changes. Dolly remains recognizably Dolly to her fans.

An interesting read. It can be found at http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/01/dolly-parton-musical-career-expressed-language-statistics/
 
Enjoy!

With all due respect for the great lady, I'll stick to Edgar Allan Poe, who was also born on 01/19.
I think I have better chances of improving my vocabulary. :P

I remember Dolly Parton on Porter Wagoner when I was a kid. I don't remember anything about her songs. All I remember is thinking " WOW! LOOK AT THAT"

bayoubill
I remember Dolly Parton on Porter Wagoner when I was a kid. I don't remember anything about her songs. All I remember is thinking " WOW! LOOK AT THAT"

I know this is shallow but i clicked on this because i thiught there woukd be pictures of how many define Miss Parton.

bayoubill
I remember Dolly Parton on Porter Wagoner when I was a kid. I don't remember anything about her songs. All I remember is thinking " WOW! LOOK AT THAT"

What? A duet?

Few people meeting Dolly would find their attention drawn first to her diction.

bapu

bayoubill
I remember Dolly Parton on Porter Wagoner when I was a kid. I don't remember anything about her songs. All I remember is thinking " WOW! LOOK AT THAT"

What? A duet?

No, there was something wrong with her sweater! 

How ironic now that at her gigs she hardly sings a note..

What's really sad is if you were to do the same treatment for the current pop songs.  I wonder if you could even fill ten words on the list that didn't have to be censored...