Miley Cyrus, now being professionally known as just Miley, spoke about her last conversation with her godmother, Dolly Parton — stemming from Cyrus sending Parton an advance copy of her new album, “Bass Persuades” — in a fresh interview with Zane Lowe.
“Dolly has been the first person that when I get a vinyl printed,” Parton told the Apple Music podcast host. “That’s the first person I send it to since I’ve been making vinyls, and this time around I was going to send her a vinyl because I always do. I’m just trying to keep myself together, but the time that we talked, which was the last time we would talk, it was actually me telling her about this record because even though we are so different, that’s what made us so perfect for each other, It’s that — and she knew this, and I know this — she is known for the fake, the hair, the makeup, and the show of it. But there’s a part of her that I think is what everyone gravitates towards… how real she is and how authentic she is.
“And there was a time in my life — we hit on it with Hannah (Montana) — so much of my life was about persona. And I think a way that I could look at that as you can have a persona and still be who you are is because I had Dolly. Sometimes I call what I do drag because the way that I present myself is just someone that is so different from the person that feeds the tortoise every morning. But again, that person’s inside of me. I just kind of have her off. One of the things we talked about was, in my performances, I always cry; I can’t help it. (SInging) ‘End of the World,’ I start crying and she watched me on Letterman and was like, ‘What are you crying about?’ That song’s about the world ending and me never seeing my mom again.”
Lowe suggested that maybe what Parton was trying to tell her was: You need to be more professional.
“That’s pretty much what she said,” responded Cyrus. “She was like, ‘Music is escapism. Let them cry. You need to get through it.’ And I was like, ‘I know, but this is who I am.’ And she loved me for it,” despite their different takes on how emotional to get in public.
Cyrus discussed having a keen sense of how the role models she has had in her life will eventually disappear from it, as Parton has.
“I cried singing ‘I Will Always Love You’ with her,” she said, “but I think she knew at that time that the reason I was crying is the reason that I cry now, which is because so many of my really stabilizing peers that I have in my life [come from] generations before me. And they’ve laid down, brick by brick, the road that I travel now. And they aren’t always going to be here for me to call them and say, ‘What do I do now?,’ which I always did with Dolly. And she was always right. It’s like how your mom’s like always right, and when you’re a kid, you’re like, what does she know? And then as you get older, you’re like, ‘How? Where did this come from? You’re just a normal person. Why do you know everything?’ Dolly was just always right about stuff.”
Cyrus’ new album comes out at midnight Thursday night. She described how producer Max Martin convinced her to go for a certain upbeat and propulsive sound on the album, which she resisted, at least for songs that were conceived as ballads.
Of a track called “Aftermath,” Cyrus said, “A funny story about that song: one of the lyrics actually says ‘the Titan sinks,’ so it was actually about a submarine, and I wrote it as a very sad ballad. I was playing a bunch of the songs that I had written, because I wrote them a little differently this record, and I was playing the record as it was with Max and I said, ‘Is there anything? Like, be brutal, tell me what you don’t like.’ He was like, ‘God, that “Aftermath” song is boring. I’m just going to be honest with you.’ He’s like, ‘So boring.’ So [I say] ‘What would you do with it?’ And then boom, boom, boom, boom and I was like, that is better. I was going for the Thom Yorke-like vibe, but he’s like, ‘No, boring.’ So he made that song so much better.”
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