Kacey Musgraves paid tribute to Dolly Parton again at her Madison Square Garden show in New York on Monday night (Aug. 31) by getting spacey, as she does. The singer discussed how hard it is for her to believe that Parton, who died last week at age 80 following a brief battle with cancer, is not part of our universe anymore.
Musgraves told the crowd that Parton was a “supernova of a person,” according to Rolling Stone, sharing with the crowd that the thing that gives her solace is that Parton’s “soul and her bones are literally part of this galaxy, this universe, the fabric of space and time. I definitely, for sure, I would not be able to stand up here and do what I do if I hadn’t been for Dolly Parton.”
A few days earlier, the singer switched up the run order at TD Garden show in Boston on Friday (Aug. 28) to pay homage to Parton just days after the “I Will Always Love You” star’s death by bringing back her Golden Hour ballad “Rainbow” back into the set. After dedicating it to Dolly, she then dove into Parton’s 1977 Billboard Hot 100 No. 3 hit “Here You Come Again.”
On Monday, Musgraves was at it again treating the MSG audience to a kicky cover of Parton’s 1981 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 smash “9 to 5,” after confessing, “I’m not over it. And I’m never gonna be over it.” With photos of Parton playing on the big screen behind her, Musgraves added, “The world definitely lost a light, and it’s hard for me to talk about. And I know how much Dolly meant to everybody also in this room. I think why it feels so dark is it’s already hard to navigate these times right now, and then we lose a matriarch like that. It’s the closest thing we’ve ever had to royalty.”
Musgraves is one of dozens of artists who’ve taken time out of their shows over the past week to pay tribute to the towering Parton, who is being remembered not just for her epic run on the Billboard charts over more than six decades, but also for her kindness, compassion, good humor and charitable works.
Parton was buried in a private family funeral in Nashville on Friday (Aug. 28).
