Country Legend Loretta Lynn has died
October 4, 2022 8:30 AM   Subscribe

The Coal Miner's Daughter, singer/songwriter Loretta Lynn has died at age 90.
Her honesty and unique place in country music was rewarded. She was the first woman ever named entertainer of the year at the genre's two major awards shows, first by the Country Music Association in 1972 and then by the Academy of Country Music three years later.

“It was what I wanted to hear and what I knew other women wanted to hear, too,” Lynn told the AP in 2016. “I didn’t write for the men; I wrote for us women. And the men loved it, too.”
posted by BigHeartedGuy (77 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
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We shall never see her like again.
posted by Kitteh at 8:30 AM on October 4, 2022 [4 favorites]


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posted by ducky l'orange at 8:36 AM on October 4, 2022


✊🏙
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I fell in love with her again after “Van Lear Rose” and her 3rd wave of success. Listening to her extensive back catalogue - it was her 42nd solo studio album! - led me to re-examine my musical biases and introduced me to some acts and songs that became favourites. I still can’t listen to the title track without tearing up.
posted by now i'm piste at 8:45 AM on October 4, 2022 [6 favorites]


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posted by Atom Eyes at 8:45 AM on October 4, 2022


yes, she was something else

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posted by pyramid termite at 8:45 AM on October 4, 2022


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Her resurgence when Jack White started championing the older country legends (like Lynn and Wanda Jackson) was really nice.
posted by indianbadger1 at 8:47 AM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


An absolute giant, and maybe even the GOAT, depending on one's preferences. And she didn't describe herself as a feminist, but I sure would.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:48 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


The Cocaine and Rhinestones episode about her song “The Pill” is well worth checking out. Very much a feminist, on her own terms. RIP
posted by TedW at 8:49 AM on October 4, 2022 [11 favorites]


What a career.

I watched these clips a few days ago, so just gonna leave them here...

From the Muppet Show:

One's on the Way

You're Looking at Country
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:52 AM on October 4, 2022 [12 favorites]


I saw her maybe 10-15 years ago in Toronto. No one would claim it was a powerhouse of a show, but she was so personable and warm and lovely that the crowd was more than happy to forgive the rough spots just for the delight of spending a couple of hours in her company. When she got an audience request for an old deep cut, she explained that back in the early days of her career, you made an album, kept playing the hits and forgot about those other songs, but then gamely gave it a try anyway. It feels like a gift to have been able to see her even if it came after her prime.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:02 AM on October 4, 2022 [9 favorites]


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posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 9:05 AM on October 4, 2022


Lay Me Down, duet with Willie Nelson.

This life isn't fair, it seems
It's filled with tears and broken dreams
There are no tears where I am bound
And I'll be at peace when they lay me down

posted by Capt. Renault at 9:07 AM on October 4, 2022 [21 favorites]


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posted by JustSayNoDawg at 9:15 AM on October 4, 2022


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posted by jabo at 9:16 AM on October 4, 2022


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So glad to be on the planet at the same time. Rest in joy, dear soul.

Hard times no more.
posted by Silvery Fish at 9:19 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


Lay Me Down yt , duet with Willie Nelson.

Man, that was perfect. Thank you.

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posted by DigDoug at 9:19 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


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posted by jquinby at 9:22 AM on October 4, 2022


As for her politics, let's maybe just say that Loretta Lynn was a complicated person and agree that a person can contain multitudes.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:24 AM on October 4, 2022 [5 favorites]


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posted by Lyme Drop at 9:25 AM on October 4, 2022


Fist City
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:27 AM on October 4, 2022



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posted by interogative mood at 9:29 AM on October 4, 2022


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"You have to be different, great or first." - L.L.
posted by fairmettle at 9:33 AM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


Adieu to the Coal Miner's Daughter.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:36 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


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posted by ikahime at 10:15 AM on October 4, 2022


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posted by humbug at 10:33 AM on October 4, 2022


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I loved her songs and her dresses.
posted by thivaia at 10:35 AM on October 4, 2022


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posted by Joey Michaels at 10:47 AM on October 4, 2022


We shall never see her like again.

Agreed. If anyone deserved to live forever young forever, she should be at the top of the list.
posted by y2karl at 11:01 AM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


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posted by Glinn at 11:11 AM on October 4, 2022


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posted by djseafood at 11:29 AM on October 4, 2022


One of my favorites. On grief and loss.

Miss Being Mrs
posted by nanook at 11:40 AM on October 4, 2022


I’m of a mind with Erik here:
With the loss of Loretta, Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton are basically the last major artists standing from the country music of the 1960s. There are a few hitmakers like Bill Anderson still floating around too but no one is going to remember Anderson in the same way as Loretta or Willie or Dolly. These deaths are a natural state of affairs, but also a sad one. It was such a rich era of the music, arguably its greatest decade, and there were so many greats coming out of that fertile era where the old-timey music of the South combined with the new production methods pioneering by people such as Owen Bradley combined with the influence of rock and roll. Loretta was right at the center of all of that. She was as country as one could possibly imagine–just that voice. Despite the usual dismissal of the Nashville Sound by those who think A Man And His Guitar is the peak of country music experience, Loretta used all that stuff and she is as country as anyone who ever lived.

Loretta herself was a pretty weird person–hard-right politics, superstitious, conspiracy theorist minded. I knew someone who knew her in Tennessee and this person said she was genuinely the dumbest person she had ever met, but on the other hand, how dumb could one be making that much money (since commenters are misinterpreting this, it was the woman I knew who said this, not me). There’s also the completely incongruous history of her songwriting with her personal life–she was with her terrible awful no good husband for his whole life while writing feminist country music anthems that often got her banned from country radio. It’s hard to square the feminism of “Rated X” or “The Pill” with anything else in her life. But no one in country music could speak to the changing lives of women more than Lynn and that includes Parton.
More at the link.
posted by General Malaise at 11:48 AM on October 4, 2022 [10 favorites]


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posted by From Bklyn at 12:06 PM on October 4, 2022


"There’s also the completely incongruous history of her songwriting with her personal life–she was with her terrible awful no good husband for his whole life while writing feminist country music anthems that often got her banned from country radio. It’s hard to square the feminism of “Rated X” or “The Pill” with anything else in her life."

This is what makes artists interesting!
posted by cakelite at 12:55 PM on October 4, 2022 [4 favorites]


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posted by dannyboybell at 1:02 PM on October 4, 2022


° 🎸 She had so many excellent songs!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 1:20 PM on October 4, 2022




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posted by brujita at 2:47 PM on October 4, 2022


I was today years old when I learned Crystal Gayle was her sister. Or maybe I forgot. I am an old.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:00 PM on October 4, 2022 [3 favorites]


The great Natalie Weiner on Loretta Lynn's legacy:

"In a genre where women had too often been relegated to being either chaste maternal figures or wily honky tonk angels, Lynn made a new archetype—one that was relatable to a great deal more women than either of the previous ones. 'I know what it’s like to be pregnant and nervous and poor,' as she put it, before singing yet another song for all the pregnant, nervous and poor women she knew were listening. It’s hard to even name a true heir to her legacy, one that has ascended to the same heights while perpetually poking Nashville’s bear—surely an indictment of the contemporary country industry, but also a testament to the pure, impossible-to-misinterpret nature of her provocations."
posted by HunterFelt at 4:01 PM on October 4, 2022 [6 favorites]


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posted by riruro at 4:04 PM on October 4, 2022


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I have no real familiarity with the work of Loretta Lynn, beyond knowing that she was an icon. Through sheer chance, though, the Van Lear Rose review was the first thing I ever saw on Pitchfork, so this is also the end of some kind of personal era. (Just to make this about me! When really it is about her, and all her work transforming country.)
posted by Going To Maine at 4:20 PM on October 4, 2022


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posted by kathrynm at 4:22 PM on October 4, 2022


She was The Real Deal. She lived it, she wrote it, she sang it. The life she had was Not Easy, she didn't get to coast in on her looks or charisma (that's charisma spelled 'Wow, is she ever hot!"). Her little sister was absolutely talented, I loved and love "Brown Eyes Blue" but I doubt that we'd have heard it without her sisters connection, I doubt that Crystal Gayle's talent would have gotten to be aired if she'd had to live even 1/2 the rough and tumble that Loretta lived -- Loretta didn't grow her hair to the floor because she was busy making breakfast and sewing holes in her kids clothing, plus had her hair been long like that her piece of shit husband would likely yanked her around by it.

Reading in this thread that Willie and Dolly are who is left standing; both of them but esp Willie should not be allowed to die, ever. Where do we go to vote on this issue?

Thank you for giving us all you did, Loretta, thx for singng hard truths and somehow making them shine.

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posted by dancestoblue at 4:25 PM on October 4, 2022 [4 favorites]


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nthing that Lay Me Down link, Capt. Renault, tyvm. I'll add A Satisfied Mind, in case anybody is looking for another "song I would play at my funeral, were I to attend."
posted by adekllny at 5:19 PM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


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posted by kuppajava at 7:34 PM on October 4, 2022


As for her politics, let's maybe just say that Loretta Lynn was a complicated person and agree that a person can contain multitudes.

I see her as being the opposite of a stopped clock: an otherwise admirable person who was wrong about one thing.
posted by e-man at 8:14 PM on October 4, 2022


She was discovered performing at a place called the Chicken Coop in, of all places, Vancouver. #RIP
posted by e-man at 8:19 PM on October 4, 2022


I always considered her the equal of Johnny Cash In “telling it like it is, but in a poetic way.” I was just talking to someone the other day about the impact of “The Pill,” especially on working-class married women.

She was a real original. Mad respect.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:55 PM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


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posted by hap_hazard at 9:52 AM on October 5, 2022


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posted by fourpotatoes at 11:58 AM on October 5, 2022


Two from Rolling Stone:

‘Women Are Human, Just Exactly Like a Man’: The Lost Loretta Lynn Interview
In a 1977 interview now published online for the first time, the late country legend orders pork skins, hangs out with her fan club, relates to Marilyn Monroe, and visits her coal mining hometown of Butcher Hollow
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“Hey Loretta, here’s a picture of my boat and it’s named Hey Loretta, and here’s a picture of my six cats and they’re all named ‘Hey Loretta.’”
Loretta Lynn’s Gutsiest Lyrics
From the fighting words of "Fist City" to the freeing words of "The Pill," we count down the country icon's boldest lines
posted by kirkaracha at 2:51 PM on October 5, 2022


More of my Mom's fandom, Loretta Lynn influenced most of what I like about country music. So much time listening in the back seat while the countryside whisked past. And oh the memories of honky-tonks with juke boxes with her latest. Time to dig deep into her catalog.
posted by filtergik at 4:03 PM on October 5, 2022


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