Songfacts®:

• The country singer Hugh Moffatt and songwriter Pebe Sebert wrote this song in 1977 soon after they were married. Sebert came up with the title after running into an old boyfriend. She came home, told Moffatt about it, and let him know he shouldn't worry, because "old flames can't hold a candle to you." Moffatt, whose résumé includes songs recorded by Ronnie Milsap, Alabama and Johnny Cash, knew it was a great title and set to work on the song with Sebert, who wrote a very "cliché country melody" to go with it. Sebert considered the song a near parody of country music, but it worked, giving her and Moffatt a huge hit to their credit.
• Sebert and Moffatt split up in 1984 just as she was about to record a solo album. Distraught, she never finished it, and spent the next few years in a drug-induced wilderness. In 1987, she had a daughter, Kesha, who inherited Pebe's talents and became both a pop star and a hit songwriter. Mother and daughter often wrote together; they teamed up on three tracks from Kesha's 2010 debut album, Animal: "Your Love Is My Drug," "Stephen" and the title track.
• Dolly Parton's version is actually a cover: The song was originally a #14 Country hit for Joe Sun in 1978. Dolly then took the tune to the top of the Country chart in 1980.
• In this song, Parton shares a glance with an ex, but instead of lighting that fire again, she lets it pass, since previous lovers can't compare to her current man.
• Kesha considers this song "part of the family." She recorded for her 2012 EP Deconstructed, and in 2017 did another version for her album Rainbow as a duet with Dolly Parton. "I have always looked up to Dolly," she said in an interview with NPR. "I always wanted to get a tattoo: 'What would Dolly do?' Because I always think about that whenever I'm in a situation or when I'm in an interview. She's just been such a positive compass for me in my career as a woman. The fact that I actually got to sing 'Old Flames' with her on this album is a really, really, really big deal for me."
• In a Songfacts interview with Pebe Sebert, she explained the songwriting process in Nashville at the time. "I'd come in with a rhyming dictionary and a cassette player with a few empty cassettes," she said. "In Nashville, everybody went out and grabbed a sandwich in the middle. Sessions started at 10 a.m. and by noon you'd be ready to hit your head against the wall so you'd run out and get a sandwich and get some more coffee. Most people were wrapping up by 3 because, at least for me, I had kids to pick up. But 10-3 was pretty standard writing time."