The year 1966 might be almost 60 years ago, but it was an important year in country music. In 1966, several songs were released that hinted at the changes in country music that were coming. The year also shows artists fully embracing the genre that was quickly gaining popularity. We picked three forgotten songs from 1966 that still rock our world today!
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“You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” by Loretta Lynn
Loretta Lynn had so many hits, “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” can get lost in the proverbial shuffle. The title of Lynn’s seventh solo album, this song came out right before “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)”. It also came out nine years before her jaw-dropping “The Pill”.
“One night, at one of my live shows, me and a girlfriend were talking,” Lynn recalls. “She told me her husband, who was there with her, was running around on her. She was crying because when she came through the door to get in to the show, she saw the other woman was also there. I said, ‘We will fix that old gal.’ That night I sang ‘You Ain’t Woman Enough’ and dedicated it to her. Girlfriends gotta stick together.”
“I’m A People” by. George Jones
“I’m a People” by George Jones is not one of his biggest hits. The song peaked in the Top 10, perhaps because of its uniqueness. Written by Dallas Frazier, the song compares life as a monkey in a zoo with life as a human.
Interestingly, the song is the title track of Jones’s only album to reach the top of the Billboard Country Albums chart. With lines like, “Every day them fools rush in / And lay down the cash and watch me grin / I put ’em all on, I’d hum a little song / An’ watch ’em all go tee-hee,” the song is definitely unlike anything else Jones ever released.
Regardless of its cleverness, the vast majority of the remainder of Jones’ career had more serious songs than “I’m A People.”
“Burning Bridges” by Glen Campbell
“Burning Bridges” is the title track and only single from Glen Campbell’s fifth studio album. The song was written by Walter Scott and first released by Jack Scott in 1960.
But Campbell took it to No. 18 on the charts six years later. Perhaps because the record also included “Just To Satisfy You” by Waylon Jennings and Don Bowman, along with Buck Owens’ “Together Again,” “Burning Bridges” doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves.
Still, the song, which says, “Burning bridges behind me / It’s too late to turn back now / Burning bridges behind me / All I want is to forget you somehow,” sounds just as much like a Campbell classic as his other hits.
Burning Bridges is also the title of an autobiography written by Campbell’s daughter, Debby Campbell.
Photo by Sylvia Pitcher/Redferns
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