Keeping with the theme of the day, over at The Atlantic, some thoughts on mothers and feminism in country music.:

Country’s willingness to consider women as mothers in addition to considering them as (sexually available) daughters isn’t always liberating, by any means. But it is, or at least can be, an alternative that isn’t generally explored or exploited in other parts of the pop landscape. At the least, this means that country is sometimes able to see mothers not just as stock characters, but as people whose experiences may in themselves be worth singing about—as in Loretta Lynn’s glorious 1971 ode for harassed parents, “One’s on the Way.”

That song explicitly distances its narrator from the “girls in New York City [who] all march for women’s lib.” But the ability to see mothers as human beings also makes it possible for country on occasion to have something that starts to look like an honest-to-God feminist vision. “To Daddy,” a hit for Emmylou Harris in 1970, for example, about the emotional aridity and monotony of a stay-at-home mother’s life, sure sounds like songwriter Dolly Parton was channeling Betty Friedan. In any case, it’s hard to imagine Friedan wouldn’t approve of the conclusion.

Fresh Air interviews with two of these great ladies of country, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton.

Sissy Spacek on Loretta Lynn: “There’s something about the way Loretta — nobody else sings like Loretta, and nobody else talks like Loretta. In fact, nobody in Kentucky sounds like Loretta. There’s something that she does with her breath that’s just unique and once I captured her rhythm, the hardest part of Coal Miner’s Daughter for me was giving it all up … [and] not being Loretta. I was so funny when I was Loretta. She has such a great sense of humor.” [full interview here]

(via Sissy Spacek’s ‘Extraordinary Ordinary Life’ : NPR)

Audio for the interview with Loretta Lynn is now up. Enjoy!

Fake Loretta Lynn songs?

Loretta Lynn’s written songs with titles like “Don’t Come Home A’Drinking (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” “You’ve Just Stepped In (From Stepping Out on Me)” and “Woman of the World (Leave My World Alone)”

I’m sure we can come up with some awesome should-be-available country music hits about the news. Any suggestions?

I sure didn’t like it when I got pregnant a few times. It’s hard for a woman to have so many kids. And at the time, I guess I had four. And then I got pregnant and had the twins. But I was a little angry. … If I’d had [the pill] I would have used it. ‘Cause back when I was having all the kids, we didn’t have birth-control pills. Or if we did, I didn’t know anything about them.

— Country singer Loretta Lynn on her song ‘The Pill’

Loretta Lynn, on her mentor Patsy Cline: “She taught me a lot about how to dress. She told me to get out of the jeans. ‘Course, I’d wear them till we got to the radio station and then I’d get in the backseat and put on my dress. And I’d take the dress off and go back into my jeans and go to the next radio station.” (from Loretta Lynn: After Strife, A Full Life on NPR’s Fresh Air, 11/10/10)

honeythroat:

Portland, Oregon and sloe gin fizz, if that ain’t love then tell me what is.

Loretta Lynn + Jack White.

domestibeast:

Tomorrow on Fresh Air: country star Loretta Lynn