It has become one of the most emotional stories ever told about Elvis and Priscilla Presley.
After their divorce was finalized, Elvis supposedly walked down the courthouse steps beside Priscilla and quietly sang Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” to her.
There is just one strange problem.
The public had not heard the song yet.
Elvis and Priscilla’s divorce became final in Santa Monica on October 9, 1973. Photographs famously show them leaving the courthouse together and holding hands.
Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” however, was not released as a single until March 1974, roughly five months later. The Library of Congress lists the single among Dolly’s 1974 releases.
So how could Elvis have been singing it in October 1973?
Dolly Parton Explains Elvis and “I Will Always Love You”
The story comes indirectly from Priscilla herself.
Dolly has repeatedly said that Priscilla told her years later that Elvis loved the song and sang it to her as they left the courthouse.
In a 2023 interview, Dolly recalled Priscilla telling her that Elvis was singing “I Will Always Love You” while they walked down the courthouse steps after their divorce.
At first glance, the release dates seem to destroy the story.
But there is another important date.
Dolly actually recorded “I Will Always Love You” on June 12, 1973 at RCA Studio B in Nashville. That was almost four months before Elvis and Priscilla’s divorce.
So the story is not technically impossible.
Elvis could have heard an acetate, demo or advance recording through music-industry connections before the song reached stores. Both Elvis and Dolly were recording for RCA at the time.
The problem is that there is currently no documented evidence showing exactly when Elvis first heard the song.
That matters because the better-known story about Elvis wanting to record “I Will Always Love You” is usually connected to the song’s success in 1974.
Dolly has said Elvis had the song worked up and was preparing to record it until Colonel Tom Parker demanded a share of the publishing rights. Dolly refused because she considered it one of her most valuable copyrights.
That episode is well established.
The courthouse performance is harder to prove.
It appears in Dolly’s later retellings of what Priscilla told her, rather than in a contemporary report from October 1973. Some Elvis researchers have therefore questioned whether the memory became confused over the decades.
That does not mean Priscilla’s story must be false.
Memories can also contain details that were never reported publicly, and because Dolly had already recorded the song before the divorce, Elvis theoretically could have known it.
But the timeline changes the story from a simple romantic fact into an intriguing Elvis mystery.
If Elvis really sang “I Will Always Love You” to Priscilla on October 9, 1973, then he somehow knew Dolly Parton’s song months before the public release. Exactly how he heard it remains unanswered.