On This Day in 1966, Loretta Lynn Scored Her First No. 1 Hit (And Radio Ban) With a Song She Wrote With Her Sister

Born a “Coal Miner’s Daughter” in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, country music legend Loretta Lynn made herself at home in a man’s world. She didn’t paint a sheen over the often ugly realities women faced. Instead, she peeled back the layers and laid them bare for all to see.” On this day in 1966, Lynn scored her first of 24 No. 1 career hits with the contentious “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind).”

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Written with her sister, Peggy Sue, “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’” offered a different perspective from the male-centric, alcohol-soaked country anthems of the time. The song opens with our narrator addressing her husband, who has arrived home from a night of debauchery with certain… expectations.

Well, you thought I’d be waitin’ up when you came home last night, Loretta Lynn sings in the first verse. You’d been out with all the boys and you ended up half tight.

Our narrator has news for her lover, however. Liquor and love, they just don’t mix / Leave that bottle or me behind / And don’t come home a drinkin’ with lovin’ on your mind.

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“Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” is a country music song, made famous by singer Loretta Lynn in early 1967. The song was Loretta Lynn’s first number-one country hit. It is one of her best known songs and is included in all of her live shows. It was only the seventh solo female vocalist record to hit that position up to that time (the others being by Goldie Hill, Connie Smith, and two each by Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline) as well as the first written by the woman herself (the song being co-written by Loretta and her sister Peggy Sue). The background vocalists on the recording are the Jordanaires.

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Both Lynn and her sister were speaking from experience. The Country Music Hall of Famer’s husband, Oliver Lynn, was known to overindulge.

“I’ve always had this feeling with Peggy that I am kind of inside her head,” Loretta wrote in the book Honky Tonk Girl: My Life In Lyrics. “Maybe it’s because she means so much to me. We can look at each other and know what the other is thinking. Sometimes it’s not good to be like that, but when the song was finished, we both thought it was great.”

Loretta Lynn Said What Needed to Be Said

Backlash from radio stations didn’t prevent “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’” from reaching the top of the country charts. It also helped Loretta Lynn take home the Female Vocalist of the Year trophy at the 1967 Country Music Association Awards. And it established her place among country music’s truth tellers. That reputation grew with songs like “Fist City” and “You Ain’t Woman Enough.”

[RELATED: On This Day in 1966, Loretta Lynn Released Her First No. 1 Album and Introduced the World to One of Her Signature Songs]

However, Lynn insists she never courted controversy. “I wasn’t trying to change anything,” she later said. “I was just singing about how I felt about things.”

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