Whatever amount of credit you give Tammy Wynette, it isn’t enough. Alongside Loretta Lynn, she brought a female lens to country music that had long been lacking in Nashville. Every note she sang dripped with emotion on songs like “Stand By Your Man” and “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad”. On this day (June 29) in 1968, Wynette was atop the country singles chart with “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”.
Tammy Wynette Scored Her Third Straight Solo No. 1
By 1968, Tammy Wynette had two of the aforementioned “D-I-V-O-R-C-Es” under her belt. Her stormy relationship to Euple Byrd—whom she married at 17—would land her in a psychiatric hospital after she suffered a nervous breakdown following one argument.
Videos by American Songwriter
The same year she recorded “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”, Wynette saw her marriage to second husband Don Chapel annulled after just one year. In 1969, she wed country music superstar George Jones. Their union lasted six years before also ending in divorce.
Wynette brought those heartbreaking experiences to the first single and title track from her fourth studio album. The song’s narrator is doing her best to shield her young son from the impending collapse of her marriage: Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today / Me and little J-O-E will be going away / I love you both and this will be pure H-E-double L for me / Oh, I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
Released in May 1968, “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” rose to number one on the country charts by June. Also reaching No. 63 on the pop charts, it also earned Wynette a Grammy nomination for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. (However, she lost to Jeannie C. Riley’s “Harper Valley P.T.A.”)
She Didn’t Write It
While Tammy Wynette had a hand in writing many of her timeless hits, “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” was not one of them.
Instead, songwriters Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman penned the tearjerker. The same duo was responsible for George Jones’ gut-wrenching classic “He Stopped Loving Her Today”.
Before “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” Braddock had written a song called “I L-O-V-E Y-O-U (Do I Have to Spell It Out for You)” that never got off the ground.
“I just didn’t really like the way it was headed,” Braddock told the Tennessean. “But I liked the idea, and that gave me the idea of parents spelling out the word that they didn’t want their kid to hear, about the divorce they’re about to go through.”
Dolly Parton, Rosanne Cash, and Dottie West have all put their own spin on “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”.
Featured image by Art Zelin/Getty Images