September 1977.

Oh my, it’s Dolly and her big hits this morning. Clearly my head has been influenced recently by a certain holiday advert, at least I think its a holiday advert, can’t say I pay that much attention to adverts…unlike my inner jukebox.

Written by husband and wife songwriting duo Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, this was a pivotal song in Dolly’s crossover from country music to mainstream pop during the late 1970s. It’s also rare in the fact that it’s a Dolly hit that she didn’t write herself. The song was actually intended for Brenda Lee but when she decided not to record it, the song was picked up by Dolly’s producer Gary Klein and it urned out to be the song Dolly was looking for to try and broaden her audience beyond the realms of country and western.

On its release the song was an instant success, giving her a top ten hit in Australia, Canada and the US – where it topped the country chart for five weeks and also reached number three on the US Billboard chart, proving that it was indeed the pop crossover hit she had been looking for.