Dolly Parton "thought (her) heart was gonna stop" when I Will Always Love You was played at Whitney Houston's funeral.

The country music legend, who sadly passed away aged 80 earlier this week, wrote the original version of the track in 1973 - before Whitney memorably covered it as a pop ballad for the soundtrack of 1992 movie The Bodyguard - and once described how she was left overwhelmed as it was performed when the coffin was carried away at Houston's funeral following her untimely death at the age of 48 in 2012.

In an interview with Nightline at the time, Dolly said: "(It) just shattered me to hear that song played under those conditions.

"I thought my heart was gonna stop. It just pierced me like a knife. It's just - I can't explain that feeling, to think that that was so final for her, and that that was my words and my feeling - I would forever be so connected to her."

Dolly had written I Will Always Love You as a farewell to her mentor Porter Wagoner, and she explained that she didn't initially realise what Whitney had done with the tune.

The Jolene hitmaker recalled: "All of a sudden I hear this acapella sound, I just hear this, 'If I should stay', and it didn't register, and I thought, 'What is that?'

"And just still kind of - 'That's my song', but it still didn't register it was Whitney, because it was just this solo voice, and then all of a sudden it went into the 'I will always love you', and I thought I was gonna wreck. It just overwhelmed me."

Whitney's version of the song spent 14 weeks at the top of the US Billboard charts and brought in vast royalties for Dolly - but the country superstar was more grateful that the track was taken "worldwide".

She said: "I really owe a great debt to Kevin Costner and to Whitney Houston and to (producer) David Foster.

"I really feel like that song belongs to all of us... I thought God was looking out for me, that it was meant to be, because how lucky was I that that got to be such a huge song."

Dolly added: "When Whitney did I Will Always Love You, I mean look what a grand song she made out of that simple, heartfelt, you know, song... it was just amazing.

"Whitney is the one who took it worldwide and really made it a household word - or song, I should say - so I'll always be thankful to her for that."