Loretta Lynn Was Low-Key Country Music’s Heaviest Hitter

You never saw Loretta Lynn coming. Lynn’s discography is filled with one sneak attack after the other, songs that still manage to take a listener by surprise every single time someone puts a quarter in the jukebox (or taps an Apple watch, such is her longevity). Loretta Lynn, who passed away at the age of 90, was never what you expected from a grande dame of classic country music. Lynn was a coal miner’s daughter from Butcher Hollow, Kentucky who sang with a sweet twang — and the words she sang packed a punch on behalf of women who needed a Loretta Lynn to stick up for them.

This is the source of Loretta Lynn’s enduring appeal and why her music remains vital today, and why she’s about to score a legion of new fans who are just now gonna hear some of her best work as the music industry mourns the passing of a once-in-a-century talent. It’s why after you get done watching Sissy Spacek’s Oscar-winning turn in Coal Miner’s Daughter, you need to listen to her songs. Lynn always looked sweet, every bit the put-together southern lady that was de rigueur for the Grand Ol’ Opry crowd. But when she opened her mouth, you gotta imagine all the menfolk were stunned to hear a song like “Fist City” in 1968. The opening haymaker:

You’ve been makin’ your brags around town
That you’ve been a lovin’ my man
But the man I love, when he picks up trash
He puts it in a garbage can

And that’s what you look like to me
And what I see’s a pity
You better close you face and stay outta my way
If you don’t wanna go to fist city

That’s what made Lynn an artist unlike any other. Dolly Parton always turned heads with her looks, which she always backed up with meaningful hits of her own. But Lynn? Lynn always looked like the kinda woman who always has a casserole ready for the post-church meal on Sunday. That’s why it was always wild to hear her sing songs titled “Fist City” and “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)”!

But Lynn didn’t just write diss tracks, although you’d be hard-pressed to find any finer in the sub-genre. Lynn routinely put the same passion she had for telling her man to cut the crap into causes that really mattered — especially causes that disproportionately affected women. In 1972, she tackled the double standard that women faced when it came to the very taboo topic of divorce in “Rated ‘X’.” Three years later she recorded and released “The Pill,” a country music song about reproductive freedom. Lyrics:

You wined me and dined me
When I was your girl
Promised if I’d be your wife
You’d show me the world

But all I’ve seen of this old world
Is a bed and a doctor bill
I’m tearin’ down your brooder house
‘Cause now I’ve got the pill

That song came out 47 years ago. It’s still relevant today.

And that’s true of all of Lynn’s music, because she was never afraid to sing what needed to be said. She saw hypocrisy and she called it out in hit songs. Sure she got banned from country radio every now and then, but that didn’t stop songs like “The Pill” and “Rated ‘X'” from becoming anthems. Songs like that transcend the radio. They take on a life of their own. Before Lynn came along, plenty of people — plenty of women — couldn’t find the words to express their frustrations, be they frustrated with men or haters or society or the establishment. Very few people knew how to wrangle words like Loretta. But Lynn found those words and gave them to everyone who needed them.

Those words are immortal, and so is the unassuming lady from Butcher Hollow who put pen the paper and wrote exactly what people needed to hear. Long live Loretta Lynn, the woman who could always lay someone flat with a lyric.