For decades, Loretta Lynn‘s husband, Oliver (“Doo”) Lynn, with his indisecretions and addictions, was the inspiration behind many of her songs, from “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” and “Fist City,” along with “I Can’t Hear the Music” from her 2000 album Still Country, and “Ain’t No Time to Go” in 2018, among others.
In 1985, Loretta wrote what would become her final song to her husband before he died in 1996 at age 69, “Wouldn’t It Be Great?”
“My husband liked to drink a lot, and that’s where that song comes from,” said Lynn. “‘Say you love me just one time, with a sober mind.’ I always liked that song, but I never liked to sing it around Doo.”
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‘Just one time with a sober mind’
Recorded in Nashville and released on Lynn’s album Just a Woman, the song is her asking her husband to say “I love you” one last time.
Wouldn’t it be fine if you could say you love me
Just one time with a sober mind?
Wouldn’t that be fine, now wouldn’t that be fine?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could love me first
And let the bottle wait?
Now wouldn’t that be great, now wouldn’t that be great?
Wouldn’t it be great, hey, hey, wouldn’t that be great?
Throw the old glass crutch away and watch it break
Wouldn’t it be great, hey, hey, wouldn’t that be great?
Lord, it’s for our sake, now wouldn’t that be great?
In the name of love, what’s a man so great
Be thinking of? In the name of love
What a man he was
Lynn’s “All-Time Favorite Lines”
“Wouldn’t It Be Great” was re-recorded by Lynn, along with Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette on the trio’s 1993 collaborative album Honky Tonk Angels. In 2018, Lynn rerecorded the song on her penultimate album of the same name, which was produced by her daughter, Patsy Lynn Russell, and John Carter Cash.
“That song just always meant so much to me because of the lyrics ‘When my fancy lace couldn’t turn your face,’” said Lynn Russell of her mother’s song. “It was just so powerful and was a song that needed to be recorded for this album with Loretta. It shows just how masterful my mom is with writing down her feelings.”
Lynn also revealed that “Wouldn’t It Be Great” was the last song she sang to her husband as he passed away.
“The reason this album means so much to me, it was the last song that I sang to my husband that I wrote before he passed away,” Lynn shared in a 2018 interview. “In fact, he was going when I sang this song.”
Lynn then sang, Wouldn’t it be fine if you could say you love me / Just one time with a sober mind.
“It’s one of my all-time favorite lines that I’ve ever written,” said Lynn.
Photo: Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
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