Merle Haggard and Dolly Parton shared a decades-long friendship, but for Haggard, it was something more. The country legend openly admitted he was in love with Parton, though she never saw their relationship as romantic.
Haggard, who was married five times, spent his final years with wife Theresa Ann Lane. Parton has been married to Carl Dean since 1966. Despite speculation over the years, Parton made it clear in her 2020 memoir Songteller: My Life in Lyrics that she and Haggard were never romantically involved.
“Merle Haggard was a special, special person,” she wrote. “We just had a really good time. But I never thought about him romantically… He reminded me of my brother Denver, so I really related to him.”
Haggard’s feelings reportedly began in 1975, when he recorded Parton’s Kentucky Gambler. Around the same time, he admitted to writing Always Wanting You about her. The two toured together during the mid-1970s, further fueling rumors of an affair.
Parton, however, expressed her affection in a different way. Knowing of Haggard’s lifelong passion for trains, she wrote My Love Affair With Trains, which became the title track of his 1976 album. For Haggard, trains carried deep personal meaning: his father had worked for the Santa Fe Railroad, and he spent his youth hopping freights before later purchasing his own railcar, now part of the Virginia Scenic Railway.
While Haggard’s love for Parton went unreturned, the two remained close. Parton’s gesture of writing a song that reflected his life underscored the depth of their bond. Their parallel songs—his Always Wanting You and her My Love Affair With Trains—stand as evidence of a friendship that never crossed into romance but carried lasting mutual respect.
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