Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Something I Didn't Know about Loretta Lynn

That she had nine pregnancies.  Six kids, but three more that didn't make it.  Listening to her chat with Terry Gross, I was marveling over just what a career she's had.   Forget the movie with Sissie Spacek, which is pleasant, but still a movie: Lynn has got to be one of the great figures in country music, and also in 20th Century feminism.  This is, after all, the lady who gave us "Don't Come Home a-Drinkin' with Lovin' on Your Mind," and "You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man" and "Fist City" ("The man I love when he picks up trash, he puts it in a garbage can")--but also "The Pill": "You've set this chicken your last time cos now I've got the pill."   She told Terry she'd never heard of the pill in her youth; "If I'd a-had it, I'd a-used it," she said.  Apparently there's a new tribute album, though why anyone would want to listen to an imitation when you can have the real thing is beyond me; also a new edition of her autobiography.  There's a pretty good Wiki.

Here's a clip of Loretta Lynn singing "Your Squaw is On the Warpath."

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