The Story Behind Why Vince Gill Wrote the 2000 Ballad “Table for Two” for Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn was already 40 years into her career when she reminded everyone that she was Still Country on her 41st album, her first since releasing Who Was That Stranger in 1988. Released in 2000, Still Country featured Lynn’s own “God’s Country” and “I Can’t Hear the Music,” along with a cover of John Prine’s “Somewhere Someone’s Falling in Love,” and a majority of tracks written by guest writers.

While Lynn was working on the album, she was hit with the flu, and unable to write new material, so Randy Scruggs, who produced Still Country, also penned the opening “On My Own Again” and “Working Girl,” while “Murder on Music Row” writer Larry Cordle contributed the lead single “Country in My Genes.”

On the album, Vince Gill and Max D. Barnes also co-wrote the ballad “Table for Two.”

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A ‘Party of One’

In songs, Lynn always documented her life with Oliver “Doo” Lynn, who died in 1996, from his cheating and alcohol abuse with hits “Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” and “Fist City,” and others chronicling their love, including “Wouldn’t It Be Great?” “Love Is The Foundation,” and “I’m All He’s Got (But He’s Got All Of Me),” among others.

Gill’s “Table for Two” lyrics read like something Lynn would have written for Doo, a sentimental reminisce of a love that’s gone—I think of you / And cry like a baby / At a table for two.

I come here each night
And take at your picture
I sit here and wonder
Just where I went wrong

There is no end in sight
No hope for the future
I miss you all over
Every night that you’re gone

Table for two
Just me and your memory
Between you and me
It’s over and done

I think of you
And cry like a baby
At a table for two
Party of one

 “Miss Being Mrs.”

Years before they collaborated on “Table for Two,” Lynn asked Gill to join her “Loretta Lynn & Friends” television special in 1995. When Still Country came around, Gill felt honored to write something for Lynn.

“As a fellow songwriter, a songwriter of your stature to think enough of one of my songs to record it,” Gill told Lynn during a live performance in 2001. “You have no idea what it means to me.”

In 2004, eight years after Doo’s death, Lynn released “Miss Being Mrs.” on her album Van Lear Rose. The ballad described her loneliness with him and being a widow. That year, she reunited with Gill to perform a duet of “Miss Being Mrs.” during the 39th annual Academy of Country Music Awards.

When Lynn died in 2022, Gill paid tribute to her at the Grand Ole Opry with his “Go Rest High on That Mountain.”

Photo: Ron Wolfson/WireImage for Bragman Nyman Cafarelli