Loretta Lynn wasn’t just known for her entrancing voice and unique country music songwriting prowess. She was also known for challenging norms in country music throughout her career. These four Loretta Lynn tracks from the 20th century are just a few well-loved examples. Let’s take a look!
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1. “The Pill”
Arguably the most controversial of all of Loretta Lynn’s most memorable tracks, “The Pill” was both a strong cultural statement in 1975 and a successful piece of media that educated women in the Deep South about their choices when it came to birth control.
“[‘The Pill’] has reached more people out in the country and done more than all the government programs put together,” Lynn once said of the song’s reception, as told to her by a doctor after the song was released.
2. “Dear Uncle Sam”
This is an earlier example of controversial Loretta Lynn tracks that came long before songs like “The Pill” were making people clutch their pearls. This 1966 country song is an exploration of a then-taboo subject: The Vietnam War and the resulting emotional trauma of war as a whole.
In interviews around the time of the song’s release, Lynn said that she got the idea for “Dear Uncle Sam” while listening to radio coverage of what was going on overseas. Upset about how many men were dying, she penned this heavy tune to exorcise her own pain and the pain that many people with soldiers in their lives were experiencing at the time.
3. “Rated X”
This 1972 song isn’t quite as well-known as “The Pill”, but it’s close to being as controversial. “Rated X” is an outspoken, direct song about how harshly divorced women are treated in society. In a broader sense, the song is about the downfalls of being perceived by the public as a woman.
Nobody in country music was making tunes about being mistreated and judged by the people around you for being divorced. “Rated X” is yet another example of how ahead of her time Lynn was.
4. “Fist City”
On the more lighthearted side of Loretta Lynn tracks is “Fist City” from 1968. This song puts Lynn’s feisty, outspoken nature on full display.
“Fist City” is a humorous and direct song about knocking out someone who is hitting on her man, and it’s loaded with some pretty cold disses. It wasn’t rare to hear this kind of subject matter in country music, but it was certainly rare to hear it from the mouth of a woman.
Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Americana Music
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