Dolly Parton pays tribute to late husband Carl Dean with emotional new song ‘If You Hadn’t Been There’

nypost.com:

Dolly Parton is paying tribute to her late husband, Carl Dean, with a new emotional song titled “If You Hadn’t Been There.”The country singer shared the album art — including a throwback photo of the couple — via Instagram on on Friday.In the photo, Parton wraps her arms around Dean’s neck as she stands behind him.“Carl and I fell in love when I was 18 and he was 23, and like all great love stories, they never end,” Parton, 79, wrote. “They live in memory and in song, and I dedicate this to him.”Dean died Monday in Nashville, Tennessee, at 82.“If you hadn’t been there / Where would I be? / Without your trust, love and belief,” Parton sings on the track.“The ups and downs / We’ve always shared / And I wouldn’t be here, if you hadn’t been there,” she continues.Dean was last photographed publicly on a rare outing in Brentwood, Tennessee, in December 2019.

The private businessman left a local post office with his assistant and got into a white SUV at the time.The couple met at a Wishy Washy Laundromat in Nashville when Parton was 18.

They tied the knot on May 30, 1966.“My first thought was ‘I’m gonna marry that girl.’ My second thought was, ‘Lord she’s good looking.’ And that was the day my life began,” he told Entertainment Tonight in 2016. “I wouldn’t trade the last 50 years for nothing on this Earth.”The pair never had children, citing the enjoyment of “freedom” and Parton wanting to focus on her career.“He likes his freedom.

If I call him, that’s fine, he ain’t expectin’ it. He doesn’t like me home for long because it interferes with his tradin’. So we never really have any hold on each other.