Songfacts®:

• Growing up, Dolly Parton was a faithful member of the Pentecostal church where her maternal grandfather, Jake Owens, was the pastor. Though she classifies herself as "very, very spiritual" rather than religious, Dolly is thankful for her Bible background, which is reflected in the title track of her country-gospel album The Golden Streets Of Glory. In the tune, she hopes she's lived a good enough life to earn her mansion on heaven's golden avenue.
  
  "I hope that when my journey ends, that's where I will end up. But you have to be good enough during your life to get there," she wrote in her 2020 book, Storyteller. "If I am, I'll be able to walk those golden streets. The song goes back to my growing up in the church. It was influenced by the songs that I used to sing at Rev. Jake's House of Prayer. It's a real good, uptempo thing."
• The imagery is inspired by John 14:2-3 when Jesus explains, "In my Father's house are many rooms. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also," as well as Revelation 21:21, which states, "the great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass."
• This was Dolly's first gospel album and her sixth solo album. It peaked at #22 on the Country Albums chart.
• The album was nominated for Best Sacred Performance at the Grammy Awards in 1972 but lost to Charley Pride's Did You Think To Pray.
• Country singer Connie Smith covered this on her 1973 album, God Is Abundant. Dolly, a huge Smith fan, says she's prouder of Smith's record than she is of her own.