The whole thing about Elvis wanting to record it, and the Colonel’s stepping in to scotch the deal on the basis of an outmoded way of thinking about business, seems to me to be one of the greatest missed opportunities in pop music history. Dolly said in later years that she was totally shattered about the whole thing, because she knew that Elvis would have put everything he had into it had the Colonel not interfered. Linda, however, was the next best person for the song, not because she and Dolly had become friends, but because Linda herself felt a deep emotional connection to the song. Linda’s version is much less country than Dolly’s is, but even Dolly herself wildly approved of how Linda interpreted it.

She did find a taker for the song not long after that, though: her soon-to-be Trio pal Linda Ronstadt recorded her own version on Prisoner In Disguise in 1975.