Versions of I Will Always Love You Comparison

Scan a Song Project

I chose Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You to scan and try to decipher. While doing this project, I saw way more differences than I saw similarities. That being said, there still was a similarity or two. One thing I found the same was that the breaks between words and line breaks, in general, are the same. I was kind of shocked and confused at how that was seeing as how each cover was so different even though it was the same song.

Now, how long a pause and or line break last varied, but they all were around the same time in the song. I also noticed that this song was overall sung by the three women of choice out of love. Whether it was love as friends, love as a romantic relationship, or love as a mentor or role model, it all was out of love and genuinely coming from the heart.

When singing a song, I notice the three artists I chose all had different meanings and emotions behind their tone of voice.

When Dolly Parton wrote this song, it was a song for her manager at the time. Her five-year contract was coming to an end and he wasn’t trying to let her go due to all the success she was having. So she wrote this song in hopes that maybe he would get it (it being that she was leaving regardless of if he wanted her to or not).

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What I noticed about this song is that it is a shorter country song with a scansion that is very stressed. Because this is a country song, she seems to stress the pronunciation of the words a lot more and the words were very short when she said them (almost as if she was reading them instead of a sing-song way where you tend to drag the words). I took Whitney Houston’s most popular version and noticed that it was very different. When she sang the song, its meaning was more of veering toward missing loved on,e and even though you have to leave them or should, you will always have feelings for and care for them. She had a more melodic tone when singing, especially in the chorus, so where Whitney’s version was harder to identify when there was a break it was very easy to identify it when listening to Dolly’s version. Whitney also didn’t seem to stress the syllables of the words as much, so they blended and flowed very well together.

The last person I looked at was Jennifer Hudson’s cover she did of the song which was kind of a mix between Whitney’s style and Dolly’s style. She sang this song at Whitney Houston’s funeral, so the emotion and meaning behind her singing was a farewell to an old friend and showing her admiration towards her. She stressed the syllables as Dolly did, but also stretched out the words making the song more melodic like Whitney did, which I found to be a happy medium that probably would have appealed to both audiences at the time. Doing this project, I saw way more than I would have ever imagined to see and understand in songs. I learned that every person can sing a song and it will be completely different, no two people will ever be the same and that is something unique that I will cherish and appreciate more.