Jeff Tweedy shares why he thinks Dolly Parton shouldn’t have written ‘I Will Always Love You’

“All I know is that she wrote ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ in the same day and I think she should’ve stopped after ‘Jolene.’”

Dolly Parton (and, by extension, Whitney Houston) fans cover your ears, because musician Jeff Tweedy is calling out one of her most legendary hits, “I Will Always Love You.”

The Wilco singer, who recently released a memoir titled World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music, explained why he can’t stand the song and doesn’t think Parton should’ve ever written it during his visit to The Late Show on Tuesday.

“The book would’ve sounded really silly if I didn’t take ownership of some things that aren’t for me,” Tweedy explained, “and one of them is ‘I Will Always Love You.’”

His declaration immediately drew an audible gasp from the audience. “You hate Dolly Parton,” host Stephen Colbert joked. “That’s what you just said. You said Dolly Parton has no talent is what you said Jeff Tweedy.”

“No, I love Dolly,” Tweedy maintained. “All I know is that she wrote ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ in the same day and I think she should’ve stopped after ‘Jolene.’”

The “California Stars” singer fully admitted that he knows he’s “wrong” when it comes to his hot take. After all, “I Will Always Love You” is widely considered to be one of the greatest songs of all time, with Houston’s Grammy-winning rendition of the track for the Bodyguard soundtrack currently holding the record as the best-selling single by a female artist of all time.

Jeff Tweedy and Dolly Parton.RICK DIAMOND/MSBB14/GETTY IMAGES; JASON KEMPIN/GETTY IMAGES

Tweedy’s ire toward the song comes from how long Parton holds the “I” in its chorus. “It’s obviously me, because I think that people have a natural kind of inclination to reject things that they can’t do,” he said. “And I can’t hold a note for very long, so that song is dead to me.”

Parton isn’t the only one who came under fire within Tweedy’s new book. Colbert also listed several other hit songs that Tweedy voiced his disapproval of in the book, including Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” and the Allman Brothers Band’s “Ramblin’ Man.”

“You got some balls, man,” Colbert joked, to which Tweedy laughed as he replied, “I know. This has been a disaster.”

Listen to Tweedy talk about his least favorite songs in the clip above.