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Dolly Parton hid a secret song that won't be released until 2045

UNSPECIFIED - DECEMBER 10: In this screengrab released on December 10, Dolly Parton performs during the Billboard Women In Music 2020 event on December 10, 2020. (Photo by 2020 Billboard Women In Music/Getty Images for Billboard)
Dolly Parton has hidden a secret song (Photo by 2020 Billboard Women In Music/Getty Images for Billboard)

Dolly Parton has revealed that she has recorded a secret song which won’t be released until 2045.

The unheard track is on a CD sitting in a vault in Dollywood's DreamMore Resort in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where it has been since the resort opened in 2015.

According to Taste of Country, Parton wrote in her new book Songteller: My Life in Lyrics that the idea had been suggested to her as a way of marketing the resort, but that she had decided to go ahead with it.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - NOVEMBER 13:  (FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY)  Dolly Parton performs onstage at the 53rd annual CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena on November 13, 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Mickey Bernal/WireImage)
Dolly hopes to be around for the song's first play (Photo by Mickey Bernal/WireImage)

The 74-year-old star wrote that her team had told her she would be long dead by the time the song was first played, 30 years on from the resort opening, but that she thought she might well have a chance of making it to the age of 99 and seeing its release.

She wrote: "That's like burying one of my kids, putting it on ice or something, and I won't be around to see it brought back to life.

"It's just burning me up inside that I have to leave it in there. Hopefully, it will play and the whole thing ain't rotted.”

TODAY -- Pictured: Dolly Parton on Wednesday, November 20, 2019 -- (Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
The song is in a vault at Dollywood (Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

She added: "I don't know if I want to live to be 100 or not. But you never know. I might, and if I do, I'm going to be at that opening.”

The CD is stored in a chestnut wood box built by her uncle and sits behind a glass display case along with a CD player awaiting its first play.

Parton is famed for country classics Jolene and 9 to 5, and was one of the songwriters of And I Will Always Love You.

She recently hit the headlines for her $1million charitable donation to COVID-19 research and the Moderna vaccine at Vanderbilt University.

Watch: Dolly Parton hopes Beyonce might cover Jolene