Fans Think Dolly Parton Will Be Featured on 'Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version)'

Give a Swiftie a crumb of new intel about Taylor Swift's life, and they'll find a way to interpret it as an Easter Egg and/or spin it out into a theory.

The latest nugget of Swift intel that's sending the singer's dedicated fandom rabbit-holing comes courtesy of country music legend Dolly Parton, who recently followed Swift on Instagram, according to reports from Billboard and Uproxx. Fan accounts quickly took screenshots and shared the receipts all over the internet.

The recent social media connection has led some fans to believe that Swift and Parton have a collaboration in the works—perhaps even something for the "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" singer's highly-anticipated re-record of her debut album, Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version).

Swift has made her admiration for Parton clear in the past, like when she gushed about the "Jolene" singer in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2023.

“Dolly is a force of evolution and transformation in our industry, but she does it with such playful levity it almost looks effortless," Swift said. "Her sense of humor and mischief are easily my favorite things about her, because I think it forces the world to reconcile that a woman can be a serious artist and writer who also has raucous fun with it, can make people laugh and be in on every joke.”

It's not a stretch to think that, if Swift and Parton have indeed decided to work together on a song, that it could be for Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version)—in fact, it's a move that would fit perfectly with the pattern Swift has established for most of the re-records.

All of the Taylor's Version albums Swift has released so far—Fearless (Taylor's Version) in April 2021, Red (Taylor's Version) in November 2021, Speak Now (Taylor's Version) in July 2023, and 1989 (Taylor's Version) in October 2023—have included previously unreleased songs "from the vault" that Swift wrote during the time when she was working on the album in question. And three of the four—Fearless (Taylor's Version), Red (Taylor's Version), and Speak Now (Taylor's Version)—have included featured artists on some of the vault tracks.

The artists Swift has tapped to collaborate on songs for her Taylor's Version releases have fit with the genre or tone of the Swift album/era in question. Keith Urban and Maren Morris each appear as featured artists on songs on Fearless (Taylor's Version), Red (Taylor's Version) included features from Phoebe Bridgers and Chris Stapleton, and Swift invited Hayley Williams and Fall Out Boy to join her on tracks from Speak Now (Taylor's Version).

It would make perfect sense for Swift to turn to a country music legend like Parton to collaborate on a track for the re-recorded version of her debut album, which firmly in the country genre itself.

And, based on what Parton has said publicly about Swift, it would also make sense for her to be all-in on the idea of a collab.

“Taylor Swift is amazing what she has done with her career,” she said of Swift in an interview with Variety in September. “I just admire her very much and how she’s handled her business, her personal life and what all she has meant to so many young people. [She’s] been a great inspiration.”