Loretta Lynn Once Wrote a Song ‘so Dirty’ She Had to Close Her Eyes to Sing It
Country music icon Loretta Lynn wrote more than a hundred recorded songs in her life. Some of them stirred controversy from time to time. One even received a ban from country music radio that’s been in effect since the ’70s.
When discussing the outrage over that tune, she confessed there was another she wrote that she thought would have been more likely to cause such finger-wagging in her direction. More specifically, she said it was “so dirty” she had to close her eyes when she sang it.
Loretta Lynn’s songs sometimes caused controversy and 8 received bans
Lynn wrote about 20 percent of the 570 songs she recorded in her career, mainly between the ’60s and ’70s (Billboard). Tunes like “Rated X” and “Fist City” provided a raw perspective of womanhood, which wasn’t for everyone.
“I’ve had eight of my songs banned, and all eight went to No. 1!” Lynn noted in a 1987 interview with the San Diego Union Tribune. The Grammy-winning artist added, “As soon as I heard one of my songs got banned, I knew it would go to the top of the charts!”
She explained she “was saying things girls weren’t supposed to say,” adding, “But I didn’t realize they weren’t supposed to say it because I got married at 13 and had kids. I hadn’t been out in the world and hadn’t realized I’d upset people.”
Loretta Lynn once wrote a song ‘so dirty’ she had to close her eyes when she sang it
When Lynn released her song “The Pill,” it was a hot take on access to birth control and female sexual liberation in the ’70s. Some branded it an anthem for feminism, but it promptly received a ban from country music radio stations that is still effective today.
Lynn spoke about its controversy, confessing it wasn’t even her dirtiest song. “It isn’t as dirty as some of my other songs,” she said in a 1975 interview with Time. “I wrote one the other day that is so dirty I have to close my eyes when I sing it.”
Some of Loretta Lynn’s ‘dirty’ songs
It’s unclear which of Lynn’s “dirty” songs she was referring to, but there are more than a few possibilities. For instance, she wrote some that took on female sexual desire and pleasure.
Take, for example, “Wings Upon Your Horns,” which explores the loss of virginity with lines like, “Before you first made love to me / You called me your wife-to-be,” and, “You’re the first to ever make me / Fall in love and then not take me.”
Lynn sang, “There’s a little thing called love / And that’s what changed me / From an innocent country girl / To a woman of the world / The night I let you hang my wings upon your horns.”
Lynn wrote that song in 1969, years before her Time interview. But in 1976, the “Coal Miner’s Daughter” singer released “Somebody Somewhere” about being lonely and lustful, another potential contender for the song that was “so dirty.”
In that one, Lynn sang, “Somebody, somewhere don’t know what he’s missin’ tonight / Lord, here sits a woman, just lonesome enough to be right / For love ’em or leave ’em, how I need someone to hold tight.”
