Songfacts®:

• In the title track from her bluegrass album, Dolly Parton copes with the pain of a breakup by pretending opposites are true:
  
  I'm happy now
  And I'm glad we're through
  And the sky is green
  And the grass is blue
• Parton wrote this during a 30-minute lunch break from filming the movie Blue Valley Songbird. The song came out so quickly, she attributes it to divine intervention. "It was so perfect," she said in a 1999 interview. "You know how I just love it when, when I feel like God intervenes when I'm really needin' something really bad cause I always - any gifts I have, I always give God the glory and like I say, some songs are better than others. God does better sometimes than he does on others, but anyway, this time, I was so tired. I just wanted it to be so good and he just pretty much wrote this one on His own. I just sat back there and just, you know, in this little amount of time, so I thought, Well God wrote a really good song today, so I'm gonna send this over, but I didn't put his name on it, but at least I'll give Him the glory."
• Parton picked the perfect time to release a bluegrass album. Bluegrass darling Alison Krauss was making her way into the mainstream and, shortly after the album's release, the Appalachian-inspired soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou? debuted to great acclaim. Despite little support from mainstream country radio, The Grass Is Blue peaked at #24 on the country chart and won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album.
• Norah Jones recorded this for the 2003 tribute album, Just Because I'm a Woman: Songs of Dolly Parton.
• The album was produced by Parton's friend Steve Buckingham, who first worked with the singer on her million-selling 1991 album, Eagle When She Flies. Buckingham was reading a music magazine when he came across a poll asking which non-bluegrass artist should record a bluegrass album - Parton was at the top of the list. When he suggested the idea to her, she jumped right on board.
• The album also features a cover of Billy Joel's "Travelin' Prayer." Dolly earned a nomination for Best Female Country Vocal Performance at the 2001 Grammy Awards, but lost to Faith Hill for "Breathe."