Dolly Parton Turned Stephen Colbert into a Weeping Mess

Dolly Parton was the featured virtual guest on Tuesday's episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where the country singer/songwriter was promoting her forthcoming autobiography/coffee table book, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics, due out next month.

Less than a verse into "Burt Me Beneath the Willow" - a folk tune about a woman's suicide that Parton's mom would sing to her as a child - Colbert laughed in an attempt to hold back tears, an effort that didn't work for very long.

Dolly understood, telling the 56-year-old host she's also been moved to tears by the power of music. "Those old songs were just unbelievable though", she added.

Parton admits that she and her siblings often cried with their mother would sing to them, to which Colbert asks her, "Isn't it amusing that sometimes there's nothing happier than a cry?"

Ha! She must get that all the time!

Then Parton launched into the song, a cappella.

And then it goes- are you crying? "I better hush before you cry yourself to death and we can't finish the show". "Like lots of People, I'm beneath lots of stress proper now, Dolly", Colbert replied, laughing as he continued to wipe away tears. "We used to cry when Mama would sing", she told him.

Now we cry by turning on the news, LOLz!

Keep reading for a few more of our favorite Dolly Parton interviews from over the years.

"In a nutshell, it's a sad song about a desperate girl who wants to die and be buried under a weeping willow tree so that her former fiancé, who cheated on her and is now with someone else, will perhaps weep for her under the tree." the Grass Clippings blog states. You got my tripwire right there, I'll tell you. "I think that is the reason for the tears".