Loretta Lynn - Still a Mountain Girl Arena

This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

Well, I was borned a coal miner's daughter

in a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler.

We were poor, but we had love.

That's the one thing my daddy made sure of

and he shovelled coal to make a poor man's dollar.

My daddy, he worked all night in the Van Lear coal mines.

All day long in the field, a hoeing corn...

# In the field a hoeing corn

# Mommy rocked the babies at night

# And read the Bible by the coal oil light

# And everything would start all over come break of morn

# Daddy loved and raised eight kids on a miner's pay

# Mommy scrubbed our clothes on a washboard every day

# Why I've seen her fingers bleed

# To complain, there was no need... #

Loretta Lynn was 19 the first time she won the big...

She won big at the local fair.

Her canned vegetables brought home 17 blue ribbons...

LAUGHTER

..and made her Canner of the Year.

LAUGHTER

Where is Loretta?

Now, THAT'S impressive.

For a girl from Butcher Holler, Kentucky,

that was fame.

Fortunately, for all of us,

she decided to try her hand

at things other than canning.

Her first guitar cost 17

and, with it, this coal miner's daughter

gave voice to a generation

singing what no-one wanted to talk about

and saying what no-one wanted to think about.

And now, over 50 years after she cut her first record,

-and canned her first vegetables...

-LAUGHTER

Loretta Lynn still reigns as the rule-breaking, record-setting

-queen of country music.

-APPLAUSE

Oh, heavens.

I never thought of anything like this when I was a kid.

Growing up in Butcher Holler,

that's where you'll stay, you know, you thought.

We were way back in the hills.

We were poor.

We were poor, but we didn't starve - that's the main thing.

# ..Yeah, I'm proud to be a coal miner's daughter

# I remember well, the well where I drew water

# The work we done was hard

# At night we'd sleep cos we were tired

# I never thought of ever leaving Butcher Holler

# Well, a lot of things have changed since way back then

# And it's so good to be back home again

# Not much left but the floor

# Nothing lives here any more

# Except the memory of a coal miner's daughter. #

There's something about the Appalachian Mountains,

the mountains that Loretta grew up in -

it's like there's something really spiritual about them.

It's like, so, it...

They're like her church.

And now they're like my church.

That nature that's all around, you know.

She grew up in that and it's been desecrated

over the years by

people who've come in and exploited

the coal, the timber.

They've brought down mountains and yet,

those people that have been taken advantage of for years, for decades,

maybe even a century,

have survived by, you know,

their tight-knit families,

music is at the core of their beings and...

despite all of the exploitation

of those mountains,

they're beautiful

and much of it has survived,

as you see.

Loretta's still living in it,

in those...

Appalachian Mountain chains, and so am I.

# Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes

# Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes

# Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes

# I'll never love blue eyes again

# Willie, my darling, I love you

# I love you with all of my heart

# Tomorrow we might have been married

# But the bottle has kept us apart. #

My daddy could pick up anything and play it.

Play a tune on anything.

Mommy could, too.

All my brothers did.

You leave there and see other people,

and they don't play instruments.

You think... You don't know what to think about it.

But hill people can all do it.

They figure it's just part of their life.

The Grand Ole Opry started on Saturday night.

Bill Monroe'd start playing

and Mommy'd hit the floor and start dancing.

Mommy'd dance and Daddy'd sing, and...

# Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining

# Shine on the one that's gone... #

I used to swing on the front porch

and sing just as loud as I could sing.

And Daddy came out one day and said,

"Loretty, will you hush that big mouth?

"Everybody in this Holler can hear you."

I said, "Well, Daddy, what difference does it make?

"Everybody's my cousin anyway."

# ..The stars shining bright

# They whispered from high

# Your love has said goodbye

# Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining... #

I've never seen this, this is great. What is this?

You've never seen this?

-There you are, Sissy.

-There I...

Coal Miner's Daughter.

And I bet you're singing Coal Miner's Daughter right there.

Prob... Yeah, that was the dress.

Here's Levon Helm,

this is the one that played my daddy.

That bothered me so bad, when I... You know,

I couldn't sit down beside him and talk,

cos he'd call me Loretty, and that reminded me of Daddy

so much that it was hard for me to talk to him.

-"Loretty?"

-Loretty.

I love this picture.

Love, love, love, love, love.

-That's me.

-Cos look at us.

There's something in our eyes, they're all...

Captured at one time.

..alike. We look like a family.

-Yeah, and that's what you're supposed to have been.

-Yeah!

Doolittle was a petite man.

You know, he wasn't a giant guy,

but he had a giant persona

and he really has fire inside of him.

Doolittle was a sweet, funny, darling man -

but he was also highly excitable

and he had a...

You know, you could set him off.

He had that little... You know that little rascal was in there,

that smart rascal.

-INTERVIEWER:

-There's a bit in the book, and in the movie,

where it's kind of clear you didn't know what was going to happen

on your wedding night.

You can say that again.

There's no telling...

I'm telling you, it was all this thing ever was.

No, you don't know.

How could you know at that age?

Mommy didn't tell us nothing.

'What we learned, we learned ourselves.'

Loretta, you ain't supposed to wear a nightgown over your clothes.

I'm freezing.

Well, get on in there and take off everything but your nightgown now.

My dad's side of the family are the Lynns

and they are Irish,

and they are loud and funny, and I...

They probably talked about it all.

Go on.

Go on now.

The funny thing about my mom,

she really is, to this day,

very innocent.

My grandmother and grandfather,

on my mom's side of the family,

they were very quiet,

really shy people

and I can see where they didn't talk about things like...

where babies come from

or having those kinds of conversations with their children.

You know, they were dead lucky because she became rich and famous.

But, nonetheless, it was a real journey

that had a very inauspicious beginning

and could have ended in tears, and all sorts of things.

But they had a mountain to climb.

Unless you present that mountain,

then there's no achievement in doing what they did.

There's a real roughness to the beginning of their life together -

a kind of violence about it and a threat about it -

and I don't think you should compromise that,

because they travelled a great distance to be in love.

SHE SCREAMS

It's just a little rough the first time, Loretta, is all.

Don't worry about that.

'You know, he'd been to war, he was a soldier

'and she was this kid, this virgin child,

'and all this sort of thing.'

And if you pussyfoot around that, and try to soften that,

you'll miss the whole joy of the relationship

and the joy of the love story.

Baby, it's just a little rough the first time, that's all.

-Didn't seem too rough on you.

-Well, you better get used to it, darling,

because that's what a damn marriage is...

I ain't going to get used to you getting on me

and sweating like an old pig!

The movie portrays Dad as being mean to Mama.

Mama whooped his ass regular.

I mean, she knocked those front teeth out.

They'd get in fights out in this front yard

and she'd turn him flips and everything else out here, you know.

He'd be drunk.

I'd stand up and fight him.

If he smacked me or anything,

I'd stand up and fight him, just like...

I'd be fighting another woman, you know.

Hey, Doolittle, how are you?

-Good day, isn't it?

-It sure is.

-How you been doing?

-Been doing a hell of a lot.

Working too damn hard.

What about you?

Hey, Doolittle Lynn.

Who's that sow wallowin' in your Jeep?

What did you call me?

A sow, that's a woman pig!

THEY LAUGH

He'd smack me, I'd smack him.

He'd pull my hair, I pulled his hair.

That's the way it was...

..but me and Doo got along good.

I just moved out of my daddy's house with Doo.

We went to western Washington.

# Some morning when you wake up all alone

# Just come on home to your blue Kentucky girl

# You left me for the bright lights of the town

# A country boy set out to see the world

# Remember when those city lights shine down

# That big old moon shines on your Kentucky girl. #

We moved from Butcher Holler, see.

My oldest sister Betty and Jack was born in Kentucky,

and me and Cissie, my sister that's 11 months younger than me,

we was born in Bellingham, Washington.

And...

Dad was a mechanic there

and then he worked on a dairy farm.

And Mama did the cooking for the help, and Dad did the milking.

Did 160 cows in the morning from four to eight,

and four to eight in the afternoon -

and then, in the daytime, cut hay and stuff.

Hard on me, you know, I didn't know anybody

and I never got out of the house

and he kept me in the house -

with one baby right after the other.

So, he come in one night

and I thought he was going to take me out, you know?

He said, no, he was going out by himself.

I had Ernest Ray and Cissie both in my arms.

Ernest couldn't walk and I had a tiny baby.

He pulled my hair, pulled one of them pin tails,

or pin curlers, pulled it out and it hurt my head, so...

He was drinking,

so I just set Ernest down,

I kept Cissie in my arms

and I went around and meant to hit him in the shoulder

and I hit him in the mouth and knocked two teeth out.

I heard teeth hitting the floor and I thought,

"Oh, my God, I'm dead. I know I'm dead.

"He's not going to put up with this."

But, you know, he laughed.

He went around with two teeth missing for ever

until we got the money to get him some teeth

and we did that after I started singing.

LORETTA LAUGHS He was kind of proud of it, yeah.

He'd tell them, "My old lady knocked 'em out."

# Well, I like my lovin' done country style

# And this little girl would walk a country mile

# To find her a good ol' slow talkin' country boy

# I said a country boy

# I'm about as old-fashioned as I can be

# So I hope you like what you see

# If you're lookin' at me

# You're lookin' at country

# You don't see no city when you look at me

# Cos country's all I am

# I love runnin' bare-footed through the old corn fields

# And I love that country ham

# Well, you say I'm made just to fit your plans

# But does a barnyard shovel fit your hands?

# If your eyes are on me

# You're lookin' at country

# If your eyes are on me

# You're lookin' at country. #

CHEERING

You know, she had four kids and Dad got her an old guitar

and she learned herself to play bar chords

and there's a little old bar that Dad used to go to,

there in Blaine, Washington,

and Dad told her, says,

"You're a better singer than them girls and guys

"that's getting up there and singing and stuff."

And Mama, "I ain't going to that bar," and stuff.

The band was up playing

and Doo dragged me out on stage and said,

"I want you to let this girl sing.

"Next to Kitty Wells, she's the best singer in the country."

And they said, "Well, we'll listen to her later on."

Well, Doo said, "Well, what day?"

And they said they had to get busy to tell him, you know,

exactly when they were going to do that.

And Doo said, "I'm going to hold you to it."

And I sang...

You Are My Sunshine.

I didn't have a lot of songs

because I didn't know them a bunch, you know.

And they said, "Saturday night,

"bring her in and we'll put her in the band."

So, that's the way it started.

And I got my job playing with the band.

I was making 12 on Saturday night

and I thought, "I'm going to get rich."

Well, you know, I started trying to write before I ever sang

and I never could get it together, so I just quit.

And then when I started singing, why, I looked at the song book

and thought, "Well, heck, this is easy."

So, I threw the song book down and wrote my own songs.

When I was a kid, she worked in the strawberry fields and stuff.

She'd take me and Cis and put us down,

and she'd take an old paper sack and she'd be picking strawberries,

a nickel a crate,

and she's stacking strawberries up, and she'd be writing...

What was her first song?

-Honky Tonk Girl.

-Honky Tonk Girl.

She wrote it in the strawberry field, just on a paper sack.

# Ever since you left me

# I've done nothing but wrong

# Many nights I've laid awake and cried

# We once were happy

# My heart was in a whirl

# But now I'm a honky tonk girl

# So turn that jukebox way up high

# And fill my glass up while I cry

# I've lost everything in this world

# And now I'm a honky tonk girl. #

# I just can't make a right with all of my wrongs

# Every evening of my life seems so long

# I'm sorry and ashamed for all these things you see... #

I went to every radio station one way,

went back to Washington another way

and, that way, I swept one side of the country and the other side.

But I'd go in the radio station,

I'd sit there until they played my record.

Sometimes I had to sit there three or four hours.

# ..To lose my memory of him

# I've lost everything in this world

# And now I'm a honky tonk girl. #

This was a girl singer coming into town...

..singing with this voice

like she came from the state of Kentucky,

accent - state of Kentucky,

with this Bakersfield, West Coast beat,

and so when you... When it came on the radio, you know,

there's that music - the Beatles did it -

that you just take the dial and you just turn it up

just that tad bit and you go,

"Oh, wow, this is something different, I've got to hear it."

I was down there at Tree Publishing Company, where I was writing songs,

and the Wilburn brothers had an office right across the hall.

And now... Whether this was the day she met the Wilburn brothers

or whatever, I really don't know,

but she and her husband were standing in the atrium there,

in this building,

and she had on this little homemade-looking cowgirl outfit.

Totally out of place.

She had the hat kind of back,

had the little rope or string,

or strap, or whatever, under and had the hat back behind her like that,

and this little cowgirl dress on.

Best as I remember, she had on boots.

I think she had on boots.

And they were just kind of standing there.

This was a little white outfit with maybe some red in it,

and the people coming in and out of the publishing company,

where I was... "Who is that out there?"

"What is that girl...?"

"Does she think this is a rodeo?"

"What...? What's going on here?"

You know.

Doyle and Teddy Wilburn,

they were helping me.

They'd just had them a big hit record.

Uh-oh, Trouble's Back In Town.

# Uh-oh, trouble's back in town... #

Hello there, and welcome to another fun-filled half hour

of country music on the Wilburn Brothers Show.

So, we all fell in love with each other and that's...

We travelled the country for a long time.

# Somewhere between

# Your heart and mine

# There's a window

# That I can't see through

# And there's a wall so high

# It reaches the sky

# Somewhere between me and you. #

You know, we didn't run into each other immediately but,

from what I've heard since then,

we hit town about the same time.

-INTERVIEWER:

-What was it like then?

Well, for a guy like me, you know,

a songwriter from Texas...

..it was a challenge but it was also the place

that I had always been told is where to go

if you've got a song, you know -

and Nashville was the place to get it recorded.

So, you know, I had some successes through the years

and so did Loretta.

She's... She's done wonderful.

-INTERVIEWER:

-When did you first meet her?

Yeah, we ran into each other at the Opry, you know,

a couple of times and, you know,

got to say hello and know each other.

'Becoming a top Opry star wasn't easy.

'There was plenty of competition and it took a lot of hard work

'and determination, in addition to talent.

'Ernest Tubb remembers his own climb to the top

'and the people who helped him along the way.'

Well, hi there, and welcome to the Ernest Tubb Record Shop.

I've talked with many country music fans right here

over this counter, throughout the past 20 years

that we have had the Ernest Tubb Music Shop, and many of them...

'I went and begged Ernest Tubb to put me on, and he did.

He listened to my record and he said, "That little girl can sing,"

and he put me on the Record Shop.

I'm sure that he probably helped me

get on the Grand Ole Opry, too.

# I just can't make a right

# With all of my wrongs

# Every evening of my life seems so long

# I'm sorry and ashamed

# For all these things you see

# But losing him has made a fool of me. #

Remember when we didn't have any...

-This is the first place I ever sung, you know?

-Yes, yeah.

Your albums are all up on the top row.

I put them up as numerical order as they came out.

-Yeah.

-Right.

I don't know if you remember this or not, but...

you would be doing the hosting at Midnite Jamboree

and they'd be hollering at the back of the store, "We can't see her!"

-I know it.

-I'd take those Coke crates up,

you pulled your shoes off and did the Midnite Jamboree that way.

-That's right.

-You remember that?

-Yeah, I do.

This is where it started, right here at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop.

I got up here and played my guitar and sung Honky Tonk Girl

-and I sung I Fall to Pieces for Patsy.

-Mm-hmm.

# You want me to act

# Like we've never kissed

# You want me to forget

# Pretend we've never met

# And I've tried

# Lord, I've tried

# But I haven't yet

# You walk by and I... #

And I sung I Fall to Pieces and said,

"I'm going to dedicate this to Patsy, she's in the hospital."

And that's how...

And then I met her.

She sent Charlie to get me to bring me to the hospital.

I didn't know who Loretta was and she said,

"Go down and find this girl and tell her I want to see her."

And so I had to go down and go, "Who's Loretta Lynn?"

You know, I didn't know who she was.

But I went down there and found her and told her and...

..she says she would come out the next day.

Well, I told her Patsy wanted to see her,

so she grabbed me and hugged me around the neck.

So, they came out to the hospital the next day

and visited with Patsy and then we stayed friends all after that.

Patsy helped her with her stage presence and then...

..how to act on stage and be a little more forward.

Loretta was kind of bashful and laid back.

She just gave me a lot of clothes.

That might have been what she was trying to tell me, "Dress better."

But I wore a pair of panties that she gave me for four years

and I don't know how long she had them

but I never did wear these panties out, I finally just kept them.

There ain't no way to wear them out.

-Hello. How are you, Tommy?

-She asked me a few minutes ago, says,

"Reckon I'll ever get over being nervous on these things?"

Loretta, tell us a little something about yourself, if you will.

Where were you performing before you came to the Opry?

I had a little band of my own up in the state of Washington.

A little place called Blaine, Washington.

And we played there six nights a week,

and my brother played lead guitar and,

about six months ago, we moved back here.

-Well, we're awful tickled pink to have you with us.

-Thank you.

We know the folks out there watching are awful glad to have you, too,

and we're looking forward to hearing you do us a number.

What's going to be the first number you'll do?

I think I'll do one called The Girl That I Am Now.

This is on the back of the record I had out called

I Walked Away From The Wreck.

All right. Loretta Lynn!

# Mhm-mhm-mhm

# Oh, could he love the girl that I am now? #

When I was blessed to take over

and build her new museum for her...

I was amazed that she had Patsy Cline's underwear

on display in her previous one-room museum.

And...

..she would probably have me put them out now.

As you can see, Loretta Lynn keeps everything.

She's a hoarder before they even had a television show about it, so...

You know, she just grew up in Butcher Holler

and so you don't get rid of things

because you didn't have any.

But thank God she kept it all and,

yes, those famous panties are in here,

but they're just not on display.

Patsy Cline is the one that got

Loretta into wearing the long gowns.

Patsy was the inspiration.

Owen Bradley recorded me

and he's one of the greatest producers in Nashville, Tennessee.

He did Kitty Wells,

he'd done Patsy Cline...

Oh, yeah, him and Patsy were big buddies.

When I come to Nashville, they were big buddies.

# And now I'm a honky tonk girl. #

APPLAUSE

Hey, y'all. My name is Tayla Lynn and we're...

-CHEERING

-Woo!

..so excited to be here, finally playing at Tootsie's.

My grandmother played across the alleyway there for a long time,

Ms Loretta Lynn.

CHEERING

So, my dad and aunts,

and all of them, grew up in here.

That says a lot about our family.

We're going to do some of her songs.

We're going to start off with

You Ain't Woman Enough To Take My Man.

# You come to tell me something

# You say I ought to know

# That he don't love me any more and I have to let him go

# You say you're going to take him

# Oh, but I don't think you can

MUFFLED: # Cos you ain't woman enough to take my man. #

Most would-be stars arrive in Nashville, long on ambition

and short on knowledge of the music business.

So, many make their first stop,

a well-known country music tavern,

Tootsie's Orchid Lounge.

Here,

located near the Opry house,

Tootsie's has been a mixing place

for songwriters, musicians

and fans for more than ten years.

I sang at the Grand Ole Opry,

which was right next door to Tootsie's

and right behind the Ryman Auditorium.

Everybody would come into Tootsie's after the show

or between shows or whatever and sit around, listen to the jukebox

and drink a beer and listen to country music.

But that's where I met Charlie Dick,

who was the husband of Patsy Cline,

and I had just written a song called Crazy

and he wanted Patsy to hear it.

We were in Tootsie's one night and he said

"Let's go let Patsy hear this song."

I said, "No, no. It's midnight,

it's late and we're drinking."

He said, "Come on."

But Patsy made me get out of the car and come in,

and she recorded the song the next week.

The first time I can remember...

being at Tootsie's,

I was probably around four -

four or five years old.

I remember coming here...

..with my twin sister, Peggy -

and my dad, he would...

He would walk us over and he would set us up on the bar,

one on each side,

and Ms Tootsie

would hand us a piece of gum apiece.

And we would sit here with Dentyne, that was the gum,

each of us would have a piece of gum

while my dad would sit here and he would talk.

My dad would do a lot of drinking here at Tootsie's.

# I'm in the way

# For you to get to him

# I'd have to move over

# And I'm gonna stand right here. #

In 1986, my twin sister, Peggy and I,

we decided we wanted to give it a shot at a singing career, as well.

And we were the house band here at Tootsie's every Thursday night,

and we were called the Honkin' Billies.

They say if the Ryman Auditorium is the Mother Church of Country Music,

then Tootsie's has to be the Mother Honky Tonk of all times.

We always would laugh and say,

"Mom would do the Opry on Saturday nights

"and Dad would come over and play Tootsie's on Saturday night."

But my dad didn't sing.

His job was to inspire the songs

that she would sing and write -

and those bottles would have a...

A lot to do with them.

# And don't come home a-drinking with loving on your mind. #

My mom,

my aunt Crystal Gayle,

my aunt Peggy Sue,

my uncle Jay Lee...

Just in that family of eight children,

four of them had

songs on the charts and record deals.

In my mom's family,

my brother Ernest Ray,

my sister Cissie,

Peggy and I all had record deals.

-INTERVIEWER:

-And what about your grandchildren?

We talked to Emmy Rose yesterday.

Emmy is my angel.

She... She's...

If she wants to, she can be anything she wants to be

cos she's a great singer

and she writes like she's 40 years old,

and has been since she's ten years old.

-INTERVIEWER:

-The coal miner is Loretta's dad...

-Mm-hmm.

-..so she's the coal miner's daughter...

-Mm-hmm.

..so you're the coal miner's daughter's daughter's daughter.

That's actually in my song.

-Oh, do it!

-It's like...

Oh, you mean to do my song? The whole song?

-No, do the bit with...

-Oh, it's like...

# From the hands of a girl from Butcher Holler

# To the hands of a coal miner's great-granddaughter. #

See? It's granddaughter,

great-granddaughter.

SHE PLAYS "I GOT STRIPES"

All right there, Johnny Cash.

# You've come to tell me something

# You say I ought to know

# That he don't love me any more and I'll have to let him go

# You say you going to take him

# Oh, but I don't think you can

# Cos you ain't woman enough to take my man. #

# Women like you they're a dime a dozen

# You can buy 'em anywhere

# For you to get to him I'd have to move over

# And I'm gonna stand right here

# It'll be over my dead body

# So get out while you can

# Cos you ain't woman enough to take my man. #

Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' With Lovin' On Your Mind -

Mama wrote that about Dad.

You Ain't Woman Enough To Take My Man, Your Squaw Is On The Warpath -

All them number-one songs

that Mama wrote was about Dad.

And Mama stayed mad at him all the time,

I said, "I don't know why you stay mad at him,

"he made us millions of dollars."

I said, "If it wasn't for him,

"you wouldn't of ever wrote them damn songs."

I wrote every song that I've ever wrote about him.

No, he gave me a lot of opportunities.

My mom and dad had many big fights

that have been gone down on record through songs and stuff,

but this room was a huge problem

because my mom saw this whole south-western

kind of Indian art and the Native American look,

and my dad wanted that masculine den

with his cowboy things and his guns.

They ended up compromising, but, I don't know,

I guess probably the Native Americans won in this room.

Mm-hm. Mommy had Cherokee, her daddy was full-blooded Cherokee.

And Grandpa... I told Mommy one day, I said,

"I don't like Grandpa and Grandpa don't like me."

She said, "Why?"

I said "I'll sit down in the chair,

"when he sits in a chair and reads, I'll sit right down under him

"and I keep talking about him and all he'll do is 'hmm', grunt."

And I said, "That's all Grandpa does,"

and Mommy said, "Well, honey, he's Cherokee,

"don't pay any attention to that, he thinks he's talking to you."

# Well, your pet name for me is Squaw

# When you come home a-drinkin' and can barely crawl

# And all that lovin' on me won't make things right

# Well, you're leavin' me at home to keep the teepee clean

# A-six papooses to break and wean

# Well, your squaw is on the warpath tonight

# Well, I found out, a-big brave chief

# The game you were huntin' for ain't beef

# Get offa my huntin' grounds and get outta my sight

# This-a war dance I'm doin' means I'm fightin' mad

# You don't need no more of what you've already had

# Your squaw is on the warpath tonight. #

A lot of those songs, from back then,

they were quintessential country songs,

in that they were about...

..hard-living men and women who kept the home fires burning and...

weren't going to put up with no cheating and you know, that was....

I'm a little sad that we're so...

We're so kind of...

..cosmopolitan now

that we don't write about

relationships in that way.

But that was the nuts and bolts of country -

drinking songs and cheating songs...

and she was a spitfire.

# Who's the sorry so and so

# Responsible for what I'm goin' through?

# It's lyin', cheatin'

# Woman-chasin'

# Honky-tonkin'

# Whiskey-drinkin' you

# It's lyin', cheatin'

# Woman-chasin'

# Honky-tonkin'

# Whiskey-drinkin' you. #

CHEERING

If you write about what's happening,

it don't hurt as bad,

it don't bother you as much.

Or that's how it does me.

I don't know how anybody else does it but that's the way I do it.

I need to write.

A good story - we couldn't eat till Dad come home,

and we had to be in bed at nine o'clock on a school night so...

There wasn't microwaves and stuff back then.

Seven o'clock, no Dad.

Eight o'clock, no Dad.

Mama kept putting the food back in.

Finally, nine o'clock he comes in just shit-faced.

Mama always had a big ol' yellow bean bowl, you know,

beans and ham hock, then she'd cook chicken and stuff.

Well, did y'all go in the big house?

All right, where the old kitchen is in there,

that big table and them big sliding windows and doors.

He comes in and Mama gets all us up.

Boy, she's running around there

waiting on all the kids and the food went one way and come around -

what you put on your plate, you had to eat it.

Mama made Dad's plate and, as quick as she made it,

he just fell over in it.

She was so mad cos she'd been cooking it.

She took that bowl of hot beans, just poured it on his head.

Well, we all scattered cos we know the shit hit the fan.

He don't even wake up.

So, the girls go on upstairs and go to bed,

and me and Jack, we're over by the fireplace waiting.

And about 11, 11.30, here, he comes to.

That bowl of beans has done dried on his head,

they're in his ears, his eyeballs.

He took that bowl and throwed it through that double-sliding window.

Busted it all out, took a chair and throwed it through the other window

and he was wrestling that big, old table

and he couldn't get her done, you know.

He couldn't get it lifted up to get it gone.

And we're...! He's chasing us around the fireplace,

and them beans and stuff's all in his ears and head.

# Well, I'm at home a-working And a-slaving this way

# You're out a-misbehaving

# Spending all of your pay

# On wine, women and song... #

She has never been afraid to speak her mind.

She's... You know, she...

Say what you will, but she's a feminist.

She was when...

And she made it OK for other women to go, "Yeah!"

I don't know, but that's, you know, that's...

That's the way movements start.

# You wined me and dined me

# When I was your girl

# Promised if I'd be your wife

# You'd show me the world

# All I've seen of this old world is a bed and a doctor bill

# I'm tearin' down your brooder house

# Cos now I've got the pill

# This old maternity dress I've got

# Is goin' in the garbage

# The clothes I'm wearin' from now on

# Won't take up so much yardage

# Mini skirts, hot pants

# And a few little fancy frills

# Yeah, I'm makin' up for all those years

# Since I've got the pill. #

The Pill was banned, but they started...

When it hit the charts, they had to take it out of being banned

and play it, you know.

Everybody had to play it when it was on the charts.

She's got her own style of writing

because she writes backwards.

She sort of writes with a double chorus.

There's not just one chorus...

per se, when you listen to her songs, there's like two choruses.

And she starts sort off with the second one,

and then finishes, comes back and writes the first part of the chorus

and then goes back and starts writing the verses

and the story to get to it.

Let's say Fist City for example.

The beginning of that chorus starts off,

# If you don't want to go to Fist City

# You better detour around my town. #

Now is this a verse or is this a chorus?

Nobody writes like this.

# Cos I'll grab you by the hair o' the head,

# And I'll pick you off of the ground. #

That's the first part of the chorus, and then it's...

# I ain't saying my baby's a saint, cos he ain't.... #

I mean, that's just a weird way of writing

that you don't see other people do.

To me, she started with the second part, and worked back around or...

And interchanged those,

but just to have that two existing parts right there

that have nothing to do with the verses of the song,

that's really complicated to do.

You couldn't really sit down and do that.

A really trained professional songwriter,

it'd be very hard for them to pull off, but it's just natural to her.

# Oh, you've been makin' your brags around town

# That you've been a lovin' my man

# But the man I love, when he picks up trash

# He puts it in a garbage can

# That's what you look like to me

# And what I see's a pity

# You better close your face and stay outta my way

# If you don't wanna go to Fist City. #

Well, Fist City, I wrote about an old gal

that was trying to take Doo away from me.

"You've been making your brags around town

"that you've been loving my man.

"The man I love, when he picks up trash,

"he puts it in a garbage can."

I didn't cover her one bit that was good.

Everything I wrote about her was bad.

# If you don't wanna go to Fist City

# You better detour around my town

# Cos I'll grab you by the hair o' the head

# And I'll lift you off of the ground

# I'm not a sayin' my baby's a saint cos he ain't

# And that he won't cat around with a kitty

# I'm here to tell you, gal, to lay off my man

# If you don't wanna go to Fist City. #

-INTERVIEWER:

-There's a lot of bad marriages,

bad behaviour, all that stuff, in the singing,

and yet, it's, like, really fun with the country music.

Have you ever been divorced?

It's no fun. No fun.

Yeah, it's hard to find anything funny

and entertaining about it,

but country music seems to.

You know, we all have gone through, you know...

difficult things and times, and if you can look back on it

and laugh about it, joke about it,

you're better off, I think.

You ever hear of a guy named Seneca?

Senaca? Seneca?

He said that,

"You should look upon death and comedy

"with the same countenance",

which makes a lot of sense.

# Well, I look out the window and what do I see?

# The breeze is a blowin' the leaves from the trees

# Everything is free

# Everything but me

# I'm gonna take this chain from around my finger

# And throw it just as far as I can sling her

# Cos I wanna be free. #

I was on the road like Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I'd get home probably Monday...

sometime and I'd spend Tuesday, Wednesday here

and get ready to leave out on Thursday.

Sometimes, if I worked clubs,

I did two to three shows a night.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... I did it all week long.

She was working quite a few days back then.

We was on the road quite a bit.

Was doing 500, 600, 700 hundred miles every night,

so we travelled all night.

I mean, she was doing about 200 concerts a year.

We was all over the Midwest.

I think we went to California that first year I was with her.

We went all... We went from border to border, coast to coast,

Canada and everything.

20-something years.

Covered some miles.

Probably two to eight million maybe.

She toured, probably,

over 200 days a year

and there would be months...

..that we didn't get to see her.

I mean, can you imagine?

I have to... You know,

I have five kids

and it wasn't until I became a mother,

that I realised...

..what a sacrifice my mom made...

..to make life better for us, you know?

It was a big sacrifice for a woman.

It was just always that way.

One of the startling things is that you...

As a child, you don't even know, you know.

You don't realise, this is the way it is.

We were just around Dad so much

because Mom would be gone for a month, maybe a month and a half.

And you know, children change and...

Well, Mom would call us Twin,

and Mom swears that that's not true,

but Mom would have to have you turn around and look at you

and then she could tell you apart.

But when you're running to the bus or whatever, she would call us Twin.

So, we had no name.

"Come here, Twin."

And, oh,

that would just infuriate

my sister and I, you know.

"We ain't a twin. We ain't twins."

And Dad would always cover for us

cos me and Patsy would smart off going, you know,

"Don't call us twin," kind of thing.

And Dad would like, "Y'all don't talk to your mother like that."

Oh, yes, when the babies were little, it really tore me up,

but what could I do?

I had to make a living, had to feed them, you know.

And we bought this place and we had to pay for it -

so I wasn't going to pay for it by not working.

# Like so many other hearts

# Mine wanted to be free

# I've been out here every day

# Since you've been away from me

# My reflection in the mirror

# It's such a hurtful sight

# Oh, I miss being Mrs tonight. #

I started on the road with Mom when I was eight.

I did my first album with Mom when I was seven.

It was called...

When I Hear My Children Pray.

It was a gospel album.

I did every album with Mom.

# Somehow I can be useful

# So put me to the test

# I know I can't do very much

# But, Lord, I'll do my best. #

When I was 15,

when I was a freshman in school,

I was going on the summertime with her

and I just quit school and started all the time.

I knew how to count money

so, hell, what was there left?

You know? I didn't care nothing about algebra and all that stuff.

Do you ever use algebra?

Yes, proudly, I watched and listened

To all he tried to say

And it makes my heart just burst with pride

When I hear my children pray...

# But, Lord, I'll do my best. #

Oh, I'll die when Mama dies.

We done talked about it,

they're going to have to bury us in the same hole,

cos we been together ever since I was born, you know,

we've always been together.

Something happens to her, they might as well bury me, too.

One year, Mom came home for a couple of weeks.

In this kitchen...

They'd just built and added on this kitchen

and my mom was going to make dinner,

which Patsy and I had never really seen her cook like this.

So, she was going through the cabinets

and she's looking for a pot,

something to cook in,

and a certain one,

and she was all...

All the drawers were pulled out here

and she sits down in the middle of the floor and she said,

"This is not my house. I don't live here.

"I don't even know where my pots and pans are."

And Patsy and I were so struck by this

that we, you know...

We've got every drawer open, everything going,

"We'll find it! We'll find it!"

But looking back, that was the moment

that she realised that...

her home's on wheels.

# I miss being Mrs tonight

# Oh, I miss being Mrs tonight. #

But, in five minutes, Mom can get up off that floor

and start all over again.

She's very good at shaking it off and, in this business,

you have to have that sort of...

that sort of backbone to you.

A lot of years through the '70s and '80s, we was gone 300 days a year.

When Coal Miner's Daughter come out,

we was gone for five years in a row - I mean, we was gone.

We was in Vegas all the time and stuff, we was never home,

and, you know, that's the key to marriage, right there.

-INTERVIEWER:

-Was that hard on you?

No.

-INTERVIEWER:

-You liked the road.

-Well, yeah.

I did was when I was younger, you know. I had a lot of ideas then.

-INTERVIEWER:

-You get a lot of extra action, too.

Oh, man, what you talking about?

That's why I got six kids by six different women.

# There's trouble in paradise

# I can see it and I know the signs so well

# I know he's out there and around it every day. #

There was only one time in the '70s

that I remember that Mom and Dad

ever talked about a divorce, and...

..it was the most devastating thing in the world for my father,

you know...and for my mom.

It just wasn't going to happen.

I mean, they could talk all they wanted to, but you know...

And it only lasted for a couple of weeks of that sort of behaviour

and then it was, you know,

they took off and were gone for a month,

you know, and come back with that flushed "I love you" look.

So, it's just the way it was.

And as growing up like that,

you also learned...

people aren't disposable, you know.

They're just... You fight for... You have to fight.

You have to fight for things that are important.

# Now I know about those devil women

# They'll set your lover's head to spinning

# And she's a demon

# She wants control

# But she ain't taking my man's soul

# She ain't taking my man's soul. #

# Hey, Louisiana woman

# Mississippi man

# We get together every time we can

# The Mississippi River can't keep us apart

# There's too much love in the Mississippi heart

# Too much love in this Louisiana heart. #

Everybody thought me and Conway had a thing going, you know,

and that's the furthest from the truth.

I loved Conway, as a friend,

and my husband loved him.

Conway was really the only one in the music business

that Doo gave a dag-gone for.

-INTERVIEWER:

-Really?

-Yeah.

You'd hear him out, they'd be talking.

You'd hear Conway just, "Ha-ha-ha."

And I'd wonder, "What the heck is he laughing about?"

And Doo'd be telling big jokes.

Most of them lies.

But he had him laughing all the time.

# Hey, Louisiana woman

# Mississippi man

# We get together every time we can

# The Mississippi River can't keep us apart

# There's too much love in the Mississippi heart

# Too much love in this Louisiana heart. #

Doolittle found our first song that we recorded together -

Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man.

Doolittle found that while we were on tour, yeah.

We come in and he had that going, he said, "I found you a hit song."

And Conway said, "I believe you have."

He looked at me and I said, "I think it is a hit."

We cut it and it was a hit.

When Conway and Loretta, that...

Do-Do-Do...

# Love is where you find it. #

And when they're sitting there just doing those singing waves

and everything together, same with Wynette-Jones,

that's all of a sudden, man, it just crawls all over you

and that's something I think you CAN'T get

from one of them just doing it by themselves.

# Love is where you find it

# When you find no love at home

# And there's nothin' cold as ashes

# After the fire has gone. #

She's performed countless hit songs over the years

and she's done over 150 concerts a year for the last half decade.

Hollywood can think of no better tribute

than to make a movie about her life.

Would you give a big, singing welcome to Loretta Lynn!

APPLAUSE

What's the movie going to be called? Coal Miner's Daughter?

-Coal Miner's Daughter.

-And that's going to star Sissy Spacek.

-Right.

It was before I had agreed to do the film, you know.

I had never met her and she...

She was...

probably the most popular guest on the Tonight Show

for many years.

She was on at least once a month, maybe...

Maybe twice a month,

but she really did the television circuit a lot and...

she would go on and say,

"Yeah, little Sissy Spacek, she's going to play me."

And I'd be watching, and I'm thinking...

At that point, I thought...

I had this bizarre idea

that I made my own decisions.

Well, that was before I met Loretta.

She's written her autobiography, most interesting,

called Coal Miner's Daughter. It's a great pleasure to have her here.

Would you welcome, please, Loretta Lynn?

-I was reading your book this afternoon.

-Oh, man.

-No, it's a good book.

-Well, thank you.

Yeah, but I didn't realise that...

you're a mother of six children.

-Oh, yes.

-Yeah, and started early.

You're from where, originally, now?

-Kentucky.

-Kentucky.

Yeah, I started real early, and I had...

I mean, REAL early.

Real early. I had four when I was 17.

AUDIENCE GASPS

That's starting early.

It wasn't easy. LAUGHTER

I had... I've got twins now.

That makes me have six.

When they started coming in pairs...

LAUGHTER

..I had my old man go get something done.

LAUGHTER

And since he got something done...

See, I was afraid they was going to start coming in litters.

LAUGHTER I didn't want that to happen.

Well, there's Doolittle.

Looking very spiffy.

He's drunk there.

THEY LAUGH

-No, he's not, I don't think.

-Was that...?

That was at the party after the show.

Doo's not feeling any pain there,

I guarantee you.

-When he gets on the mic...

-He's giving a speech!

..you know, he ain't feeling no pain.

Hollywood bets £8.5 million

on her remarkable life story.

And that was a square deal.

-Yep.

-Oh, look.

The Ryman.

Look at that. Do you remember who pushed me out on the stage?

-Uh-huh. Doolittle.

-Yeah.

Life imitating art.

# Sometimes a man's caught lookin'

-# At things that he don't need... #

-APPLAUSE

# He took a second look at you

# But he's in love with me

# Well, I don't know where that leaves you

-# But I know where I stand

-Sing it, Sissy.

# Cos you ain't woman enough to take my man

# Women like you they're a dime a dozen

# You can buy 'em anywhere

# For you to get to him I'd have to move over

# And I'm gonna stand right here

# It'll be over my dead body

# So get out while you can

# Cos you ain't woman enough to take my man

# No, you ain't woman enough to take my man. #

The Coal Miner's Daughter was a cultural event, as it were.

You know, there was an attitude there from

the kind of the coastal directors

from Los Angeles or New York,

a certain arrogance

towards the subject matter.

This was poor people, not very interesting people.

They did do good music,

but the roots of the music weren't that interesting.

There hadn't been

a really successful, popular/serious film

about country music and this was it.

I remember, one day, you said we were twins in another life.

Probably were.

I wonder if we'll ever know.

Yeah, we'll know one day.

-I love you.

-I love you, too, honey.

She's my sister.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Emmylou.

This year, the Country Music Hall Of Fame

honours one of the most admired women of our time

and, because her music comes from the heart,

she touched our very deepest, most personal emotions

and became an inspiration for millions.

She was born a coal miner's daughter,

but she has become a country music legend.

Ms Loretta Lynn!

APPLAUSE

# Well, I was borned a coal miner's daughter

# In a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler

# We were poor but we had love

# That's the one thing that daddy made sure of

# He shovelled coal to make a poor man's dollar. #

CHEERING

All right, honey?

-Oh, hi.

-I'm so glad to see you.

This is my baby, here.

My mother's family and your...

-And my family come from the same place.

-Yep.

Me and June Carter had to be close as sisters,

but neither one of us knew that.

Right across the mountains from each other,

like 45 miles as a crow flies.

-Yeah, just over the hill.

-Just over the hill.

We've had a lot of fun in the past little bit.

We've recorded a lot of music together - you, I, and Patsy.

-Me and him's done about 90 songs in the last year or so.

-Yep.

Yep, been working in the studio for a while,

-so we recorded about 25 songs, something like that.

-Yeah, we did.

-Appalachian, just real pure acoustic instrumentation.

-Right.

# I never will marry

# Nor be no man's wife

# I expect to live single

# All the days of my life

# The storms and the ocean

# Will be my deathbed

# The fish in the water

# Swim over my head

# I never will marry

# Nor be no man's wife

# I expect to live single

# All the days of my life. #

The family has never really left Butcher Holler.

We brought Butcher Holler with us.

It is born in us here.

We just created our own Butcher Holler

60 miles West of Nashville, Tennessee.

Hurricane Mills, 37078.

When they bought the property,

they didn't realise that a town came with it

and a whole zip code and post office.

It grew from her fans

finding out where she lived

and started coming to see Loretta Lynn's house.

Not only were they coming to see Loretta Lynn's house,

they were camping out on the side of the road.

I can't stand the dude ranch part.

Dad was just going to build a little camp ground for the fan club,

when we had our fan club meeting every year.

Yeah.

Then she would add more and more attractions.

They built a rodeo arena,

and then, they built an entertainment pavilion.

It's not one of the fancy theatres,

but she don't want that here.

It's still that down home,

almost tent revival, family show kind of a feeling.

Come as you are and you stay as long as you want,

and just be yourself and have fun -

and that's the way she likes it.

Now we got Grand National Motocrosses,

cross-country races.

There's over a million people a year come through here.

They had something they wanted to work towards together

and they were the quintessential great partnership,

because Dad did THIS very well,

Mom did THIS very well,

but when they came into each other's worlds,

trying to, you know...

Mom trying to play the farmwife,

you know, kind of thing.

She didn't fit into that.

Dad, on the other hand, when he went out on the road with her,

he hated it.

So, Hurricane Mills became the project

that both of them could come together on

and have a really strong partnership

because they needed each other

to make the whole.

I mean, they are two people that needed each other to make...

..a legacy.

# Yeah, I'm proud to be a coal miner's daughter

# I remember well, the well where I drew water

# The work we done was hard

# At night we'd sleep cos we were tired

# I never thought of ever leaving Butcher Holler

# Well, a lot of things have changed since way back then

# And it's so good to be back home again

# Not much left but the floor

# Nothing lives here any more

# Except the memories of a coal miner's daughter. #

In Loretta's early years,

she just gave and gave,

and gave, and gave -

and didn't know when to quit -

and she gave so much of herself,

she made herself so available,

she would stay for years and years, and years, and years, and years.

Decades.

She stayed touring as much as she toured.

Hundreds of days a year,

several shows a day.

She would stay hours after and sign autographs.

I think people should be

available to all the fans.

They're the ones making them a living.

Really.

If they only think about it,

they're the ones that comes out and sees you at the show,

they buy your records, so why wouldn't you be nice to them?

And... RUMBLING

-..what is that?

-You can come inside.

Hi, I was telling them y'all could say hello to Ms Loretta Lynn.

Hi, Loretta.

Hi there.

-Hi.

-Hi.

-Hello.