A Little At A Time

Album: Touch Your Woman (1972)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Dolly Parton was singing about working women long before she wrote "9 to 5" for the secretarial revenge comedy of the same name. In this tune from her ninth solo album, she tells the story of an average working girl trying to make ends meet "in this charge-account, credit-card, Pay-for-it-a-little-at-a-time world."

    "A little at a time is how you live your life," Dolly explained in her 2020 book, Songteller. "The song has things in it that everybody goes through, every single day. People go in debt for the things they want. It's about people just trying to get by, every day. I love my working-girl songs."
  • Dolly's been a singer-songwriter since she was a little girl, but it wasn't hard to get into the mindset of her financially strapped character, especially since she grew up poor. She went straight from high school to Nashville in 1964, but she quickly realized she needed to get a job to pay the bills. She found work answering phones at an outdoor sign company called Northern Outdoor Sign. The gig was most likely short-lived; the following year, she signed a recording contract with Monument Records.
  • 1972 also brought two hit duet albums with Porter Wagoner, The Right Combination - Burning the Midnight Oil and Together Always, which both landed in the Top 10 of the Country Albums chart. But it was her solo album that brought her a Grammy nomination for the title track, "Touch Your Woman."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World

Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat WorldSongwriter Interviews

Jim talks about the impact of "The Middle" and uses a tree metaphor to describe his songwriting philosophy.

Song Titles That Inspired Movies

Song Titles That Inspired MoviesSong Writing

Famous songs that lent their titles - and in some cases storylines - to movies.

Jim McCarty of The Yardbirds

Jim McCarty of The YardbirdsSongwriter Interviews

The Yardbirds drummer explains how they created their sound and talks about working with their famous guitarists.

Ian Gillan of Deep Purple

Ian Gillan of Deep PurpleSongwriter Interviews

Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan explains the "few red lights" in "Smoke On The Water" and talks about songs from their 2020 album Whoosh!

Superman in Song

Superman in SongSong Writing

Not everyone can be a superhero, but that hasn't stopped generations of musicians from trying to be Superman.

Rick Astley

Rick AstleySongwriter Interviews

Rick Astley on "Never Gonna Give You Up," "Cry For Help," and his remarkable resurgence that gave him another #1 UK album.