Over the years, Loretta Lynn has made such pithy use of her autobiography â a tale of rural resourcefulness, young motherhood and professional audacity â in songs, memoirs, press interviews and fan interactions that thereâs a tendency to fixate on the straightforwardness of her expression and interpret her musical output as literal translation of the facts of her life. But to read Lynnâs work that way is to overlook part of why itâs come to mean so much to so many of us.
Sheâs one of country musicâs great singers and songwriters, and a recipient of virtually every conceivable lifetime achievement honor, because sheâs drawn on her back story with a mixture of saltiness, sentimentality and wit that gives it heart and resonance, and sheâs done the same with stories that fall outside of her personal experience. Over the course of nearly six decades, Lynn has vividly fleshed out a world in which people â women especially â navigate the divide between hearth and honky-tonk, daily drudgery and romantic desire, deciding which of the old ways to cling to and which to kick against.
Lynnâs new album Wouldnât It Be Great, produced by her daughter Patsy Lynn Russell and John Carter Cash (the offspring of her contemporaries Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash), is a showcase of her songwriting across eras, modes and moods, as well as the shrewd evolution of her expression. (Itâs worth noting that though sheâs written a good many of the memorable entries in her catalog, sheâs never limited herself to recording songs from her own pen.) The title track, a stately acoustic ballad, is a song that she originally released as a single in the mid-â80s. She appears to have added to it sometime after the 1996 passing of her hard-drinking husband. Both versions begin with the same plea, delivered so gingerly that itâs wrenching to hear: âWouldnât it fine if you could say you love me just one time, with a sober mind?â Lynnâs lyrics are wistful rather than forceful, superficially reminiscent of Beach Boys breeziness, but betraying profound disappointment beneath, whether sheâs singing softly or letting feeling well up in her voice. âWouldnât it be great,â she nudges during the chorus, stretching âgreatâ into a four-syllable signifier of yearning, âwouldnât that be great? Throw the old glass crutch away, and watch it break.â The lines sheâs added to later verses make the sense of loss ring with quiet finality: âLove went to waste when my sexy lace couldnât turn his face / The bottle took my place.â
First Listen: Loretta Lynn, 'Wouldnât It Be Greatâ
Photo:Â David McClister/Courtesy of the artist
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