Dolly Parton Shares Music Video for New Song 'When Life Is Good Again'

Dolly Parton has been lifting fans' spirits throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The country legend shared a boost of positivity again this week when she released her new song, "When Life Is Good Again." Parton wrote the song during quarantine, and it finds Parton declaring all the ways she'll be different "when life is good again." "I'll be a better friend, a bigger person when life is good again," she sings. "More thoughtful then I've been, I'll be so different then, more in the moment when life is good again.

The video was also filmed in quarantine and features Parton putting a disc in a projector before turning to watch the screen, which fills with footage of families together before the pandemic began as well as clips of essential workers and everyday people wearing masks, which they eventually remove. At the end of the video, Parton takes off a mask of her own before walking to a pair of double doors and throwing them open as light fills the room. "I really try to write what I think everybody is going through right now," Parton told TIME during Thursday's TIME100 Talks. "I try to create things that I think people would like to be able to express, because I've always been grateful that I'm a writer." The Tennessee native added that she hopes the song will inspire people to think about what really matters and how they can do better and be better, like she has. "I think we have to pull together a little better," she said. "I just think we're just getting so scattered and so selfish, and we're just letting too many good things go by."

Parton added that "What Life Is Good Again" sums up her post-pandemic plans. "I wanna get out with my friends, I want to go out eat, I want to go down to the seashore," she said. "I want to be able to just have fun and just get out and be free again, touch people, be with them and just say 'Hello' and just kind of let life be better now, but get back to kind of where we're living people. And we will get through it, we will. Everything has to pass. It may be some harder days still and it might not... but I try to just keep the faith."

In addition to her music, Parton recently made a $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University Medical Center towards research on treating and preventing coronavirus. "I know that I'm in a position to help. That's why I try to do it in every way that I can," she said. "When this came up, I just thought it was the thing to do. I always follow my heart, I always have a little voice in my ear that says, 'Do this, do that and when.' So when this all came about I thought that would be a wonderful thing."