Who Wrote The Song “I Will Always Love You”

The moving bittersweet ballad “I Will Always Love You” is undoubtedly one of the most popular love songs of all time. This song has been covered by dozens of artists in several languages and repeatedly performed in singing competitions all over the world. But do you really actually know who wrote this beautiful song?

It’s rather common for people to think that Whitney Houston wrote the song. After all, Whitney Houston’s 1992 cover is the version most people hear. Yes, I said “cover” and “version” meaning Whitney Houston didn’t actually write the song nor was she the original singer. The song had been written for nearly nineteen years before Whitney Houston catapulted the song into worldwide popularity.

Dolly Praton was actually the original writer of “I Will Always Love You.” According to Praton, the song was inspired by her breakup with Porter Wagoner, her former partner and mentor. She recorded the song on June 17, 1973 in Nashville. The song was released after a year as part of Parton’s album “Jolene” which was produced by Bob Ferguson. As a single, the song attained success in the country charts but enjoyed limited popularity in the pop charts.
During 1982, Parton redid her own song for the soundtrack of her own film entitled “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”. The remade version made it to the top of the country charts again but still did not achieve much success as a pop song.

“I Will Always Love You” finally reached its classic state when a singer named Whitney Houston decided to do a cover of the song for her debut film entitled “The Bodyguard.” Interestingly, the song was not her first choice as the film’s lead single but luckily for the rest of the world, her first choice of song was going to be used in another film.

She re-arranged the song to make it a powerful soul ballad. The film was released and Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” continued to become a chart-topping career-making record-breaking single. It achieved the top spot in billboard charts across the world and sorry for the cliché, but the rest is history.