Sunday, April 18, 2010

Fist City.

I'll be coming back for some deeper insight (hopefully) on the Coal Miner's Daughter, but for now, this is one of my favorite Loretta Lynn tunes, taken from an appearance on The Wilburn Brothers Show. I'll also be writing more about the Wilburns in future posts; they were an integral part of post-war country music, if for no other reason than their highly influential Nashville TV show, which ran during the prime Percy Me! years of 1963-1974.

Loretta Lynn can't be oversold - she's simply the most talented female songwriter, guitarist, and singer that country music has ever produced, bar none (although Dolly Parton fans might disagree). "You better move your feet/ if you don't want to eat/ A meal that's called Fist City." Straight up gangsta.

Tough as nails, sweet as pie, and crazier than a shithouse rat: ladies and gentlemen, Miss Loretta Lynn.

2 comments:

  1. Bravo. You are right about Loretta. Dolly has the sweeter voice and disposition perhaps. Loretta has that hardscrabble realism...a sort of "yes, I'll feed the husband and children first and eat the dregs myself when necessary, but whoa to the individual who disrespects me" quality.

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  2. she somehow manages to be proto-feminist and yet seemingly anti-feminist at exactly the same time. she wrote songs that were pro-sexual liberation - "The Pill" - and questioned the war in Vietnam in 1966 (unheard of in country music)...but at the same time was heavily pro-Christian, pro-Establishment, etc. what looks like a bundle of contradictions to me probably makes perfect sense to her, I'm sure, and that's because she's pretty much a genius, and I am not...

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