Dolly Parton takes on Harold Camping and end-of-time predictions in new song ‘In the Meantime’
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Dolly Parton doesn’t mention apocalyptic preacher Harold Camping by name in her new song “In the Meantime,” which addresses end-of-the-world prognostications in a lighthearted yet serious way, but it’s clear the Bay Area-based radio evangelist figured prominently in her decision to include the song on her new “Better Day” album that came out Tuesday.
“I started writing it years ago,” she told me Thursday from her business office in Nashville. “I was very inspired to write it when some other crazy loony tune was saying the world was coming to an end. Some people are just so scared they don’t know what to do.”
In her perky song, Parton sings:
Well, nobody knows when the end is coming/But some people tell you they do/It might be today, it might be tomorrow/Or in a million years or two/In the meantime, in the between time/Let us take time to make it right/And let us not fear what is not clear/Faith should be your guide.
“I had demoed the song two or three times, and I recorded it two or three times, but now I know why I never put it out before -- it’s supposed to be out now,” said the 65-year-old Country Music Hall of Fame member.
“The end of time and the end of the world are two different things,” she said with an audible grin. “We’re more apt to blow up the world than something else happening. But God knows when the end of time is -- not some fanatic.”
A full profile of Parton will be coming in Calendar before her new “Better Day” tour arrives at the Hollywood Bowl on July 22 and 23.
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-- Randy Lewis
