[Verse 1] Dolly, you were thirteen When this one came into the world January '59 Just a little Australian girl You'd already found your voice by then Already chasing dreams While she was just a babe in arms You were singing through the years [Verse 2] And Puppy Love came along While you were finding your way You'd been singing long before that And you'd keep singing every day But down under, across the ocean Your music took a little while To find its way into our lives And eventually make her smile [Chorus] Thank you, Dolly For the seeds you unknowingly sowed For the words that found her heart And helped her down the road She didn't know it at the time What those songs would come to mean But somewhere in your melodies You planted part of she [Verse 3] Then late in the sixties Your voice came through our air A country sound from Tennessee That somehow found her there And then came '72 Coat of Many Colors came to her She was thirteen years old by then The age you'd been when America heard you sing You sang about a little coat Made from pieces, love and care And something in that simple song Reached somewhere deep in her there [Chorus] Thank you, Dolly For the seeds you unknowingly sowed For the country heart that grew Along that winding road She didn't know where it would lead Or what those songs would do But when life got hard, somehow She always came back to you [Verse 4] Through all the years that followed Through the good times and the bad Your songs became a place to go When she needed what they had Sometimes the words said everything She couldn't say herself Sometimes they simply stayed beside her When she had nobody else And somewhere along the journey She began to understand The country heart she carries now Was growing where those seeds did land [Bridge] You never knew where your songs would go Or whose heart they might reach A girl down under listening To the stories that you teach And now she looks back over the years And finally she can see Those little seeds you scattered Grew into a part of she [Final Chorus] Thank you, Dolly For every word and every song For giving people something To hold onto when life's gone wrong For every heart you've comforted For every soul you've reached For showing us that simple words Can sometimes say the most we need [Outro] You were thirteen when she was born And now look at us today You've spent a lifetime giving songs And she's carried some along the way And though these words can't reach you now Across the years and miles We know that somewhere down under A little girl grew up and smiled She found a country heart in your songs And carried it all these years Thank you, Dolly.
