Dolly Parton wrote “Wildflowers,” and it was first released on Trio, her album with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, issued by Warner Bros. on 2 March 1987. The three had first tried to record together in the mid-1970s, but scheduling conflicts and their contracts with different labels kept that project from coming out. Trio was finally recorded during 1986, with George Massenburg producing. “Wildflowers” is the fifth of its eleven tracks and one of two Parton songs on the album, the other being “The Pain of Loving You,” written with Porter Wagoner.
Parton sings the lead over a spare, old-time setting. The album credits list Harris on acoustic guitar, David Lindley on autoharp and harpolek, Albert Lee on mandolin, Mark O’Connor on viola and acoustic guitar, Kenny Edwards on acoustic bass and Russ Kunkel on drums. An alternate take that gives the second verse to Harris and the third to Ronstadt was released in 2016 on The Complete Trio Collection.
The lyric is a first-person account of growing up as a wildflower among flowers content to stay lost in the crowd. Refusing to wither in place, the singer pulls up her roots, takes her dreams to the road and lets the wind decide where she goes, never belonging in a garden so unlike herself. The refrain holds that a flower growing wild can survive anywhere. The song follows Parton’s own story: in a 2006 interview she quoted its opening lines while recalling how her classmates laughed at her plan to go to Nashville, and how she took a bus there the day after her high school graduation.
Warner Bros. released “Wildflowers,” backed with “Hobo’s Meditation,” in March 1988 as the fourth and last single from Trio. It reached No. 6 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart in July 1988 and No. 8 on the Canadian RPM country chart. Trio won the Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the 30th Grammy Awards and the Country Music Association’s Vocal Event of the Year award in 1988.
