The Bargain Store

The Bargain Store
Studio album by
ReleasedFebruary 17, 1975
RecordedRCA Studios, Nashville, December 1974 – January 1975
GenreCountry
LabelRCA Victor
ProducerBob Ferguson, Porter Wagoner
Dolly Parton chronology
Love Is Like a Butterfly
(1974)
The Bargain Store
(1975)
Best of Dolly Parton
(1975)
Singles from The Bargain Store
  1. "The Bargain Store"
    Released: January 13, 1975
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic [1]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[2]

The Bargain Store is the fifteenth solo studio album by American entertainer Dolly Parton. It was released on February 17, 1975, by RCA Victor. In the Parton-penned title track, one of her best-known compositions, she used worn, second-hand merchandise in a discount store as a metaphor for a woman damaged by an ill-fated relationship. The song was dropped from a number of country stations' playlists when programmers mistook the line "you can easily afford the price" as a thinly veiled reference to prostitution. Despite the decrease in airplay, the song nonetheless topped the U.S. country singles charts in April 1975.

The album was largely made up of Parton's own compositions but also contained Merle Haggard's "You'll Always Be Special to Me". (Haggard, in turn, covered Parton's "Kentucky Gambler", from this album, later in 1975.)

The album was re-released for the first time in December 2013. It was made available as a digital download on iTunes.[3] This is the first time that eight of the songs ("When I'm Gone", "The Only Hand You'll Need to Hold", "I Want to Be What You Need", "Love to Remember", "You'll Always Be Special to Me", "He Would Know" and "I'll Never Forget") have been made available outside of the original LP, cassette and eight-track releases of the album.

  1. ^ The Bargain Store at AllMusic
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference larkin was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Bargain Store by Dolly Parton on Apple Music". iTunes. 16 March 1975. Retrieved 2016-09-24.