Goodbye, Loretta Lynn

Another gone home. 

UPDATE: Any Loretta Lynn fans might find my choice of songs surprising. She had 14 songs banned from the radio, often for raising feminist perspectives in 1960s country music; and she was the artist of the year in 1972, the first time a woman ever was. 

This song, by contrast, is just as she describes it, laughing: "a silly song." I've always liked it, though. It is both playful and illuminating. I'm struck by the way the female she is playing keeps saying things like, "Do what you want, I don't care," though in fact she obviously does care; indeed, she is the one who wants it. It proves that the boy 'doesn't know why we're here,' and is still trying to play Tom-Sawyer tricks to get the attention of a young woman whose attention he already has.

You rarely see those aspects of romance successfully portrayed in a song, and here in a way in which the inevitable miscommunication leaves them still friendly and romantic. I think it's a nice piece, and she and Conway Twitty are clearly having fun with each other singing it.