In 1983, three years after singing on the soundtrack for Coal Miner’s Daughter, the biographical film of Loretta Lynn‘s life, and winning the Academy Award for Best Actress, Sissy Spacek released her debut album Hangin’ Up My Heart. Produced by Rodney Crowell, the album featured Vince Gill as a session musician and Roseanne Cash on backing vocals, and two songs written and co-written by Spacek.
Hangin’ Up My Heart went to No. 17 on the Country chart with three singles, including “Lonely but Only for You,” which was written by K.T. Oslin, Charlie Black, and Rory Michael Bourke and became a a Top 20 hit at No. 15, along with “If You Could Only See Me Now,” and “If I Can Just Get Through the Night,” and a cover of Hank Williams‘ “Honky Tonkin’.”
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[RELATED: 3 Songs You Didn’t Know Actress Sissy Spacek Wrote]
“Smooth Talkin’ Daddy”
On the album, Spacek is credited as the sole writer on the pop-leaning “He Don’t Know Me,” one of two songs she wrote for Hangin’ Up My Heart. The second was the honky tonk “Smooth Talkin’ Daddy,” about a smooth talker who meets his match with a fast-thinking mama, co-written with Lynn.
Smooth talkin’ daddy you better quit your foolin’ around
You got a fast thinkin’ mama and she’s about to figure you out
You got a fast thinkin’ mama fast thinkin’ mama
So smooth talkin’ daddy ain’t got the time to get the jump on me naw
You go love up her time you done loved up all mine
I ain’t got nothin’ left for you honey
Changed the locks on my door your key don’t fit no more
I got my bedroom changed round and I’m ready
Smooth talkin’ daddy you better quit your foolin’ around…
Tore all your pictures down threw out the clothes that I found
Cause I’m cleaning my house out honey
Gonna get over you by gettin’ everything new
Cause you’ve hurt me the last time honey
Rainbo
More than a decade before landing her role as Lynn in Coal Miner’s Daughter, a 17-year-old Spacek moved from Texas to New York City in 1967 with dreams of becoming a musician, while living with her cousin, late actor Rip Torn and his wife actress Geraldine Page.
“Music is my thing,” said Spacek in a 2015 interview. “In fact, that’s what I wanted to do. I thought of myself as a musician. I had never thought about acting. I had cousins who were renowned and very, very gifted actors, and I didn’t want to embarrass them by trying that card.”
Spacek admitted that she never made it into a play in school because she couldn’t learn her lines, and music always felt like the more natural track. “I did a lot of background vocals,” Spacek added. “I sang in different groups. I worked with a lot of wonderful musicians, but that door didn’t open for me, really. But it was because of my fearlessness at the time, I think, I would perform at the drop of a hat with my guitars—that opened the doors for me with acting.”
She continued, “Maybe it made people remember me when I would go in and read for something, and then pull out my guitar and go, ‘Oh, by the way, how ’bout I sing you a song?’”
By 1969, Spacek released her debut single, “John, You Went Too Far This Time,” under the moniker Rainbo. The song was a letter to John Lennon citing his controversial album Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, featuring him and his wife Yoko Ono nude. Though she didn’t write the song, she did pen its B-side track “C’mon Teach Me to Live.”
The singles didn’t go anywhere, which led Spacek to redirect her efforts toward acting and enrolling in Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio. She landed her first role as an extra in Andy Warhol‘s 1970 Factory drama Trash before her 1972 film debut in Prime Cut alongside Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman, followed by Badlands in 1973, and her breakout three years later in Brian De Palma’s 1976 horror Carrie before landing Coal Miner’s Daughter in 1979.
Along with winning an Oscar, Spacek’s rendition of “Coal Miner’s Daughter” went to No. 2 on the Country chart and earned her a Grammy nomination.
Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images
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