Introduction:
For decades, Loretta Lynn’s husband, Oliver “Doo” Lynn, with his infidelities and struggles with alcohol, served as the inspiration behind many of her most iconic songs. Classics like “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” and “Fist City” were drawn from her personal life, alongside later works such as “I Can’t Hear the Music” from her 2000 album Still Country and “Ain’t No Time to Go” in 2018.
In 1985, Loretta penned what would become her final song dedicated to her husband before his passing in 1996 at age 69: “Wouldn’t It Be Great?”
“My husband liked to drink a lot, and that’s where that song comes from,” Lynn explained. “‘Say you love me just one time, with a sober mind.’ I’ve always loved that song, but I never liked to sing it around Doo.”
Recorded in Nashville and released on her album Just a Woman, the song is a heartfelt plea for one last moment of honesty and affection:
Wouldn’t it be fine if you could say you love me
Just one time with a sober mind?
Wouldn’t that be fine, now wouldn’t that be fine?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could love me first
And let the bottle wait?
Now wouldn’t that be great, now wouldn’t that be great?
Wouldn’t it be great, hey, hey, wouldn’t that be great?
Throw the old glass crutch away and watch it break
Wouldn’t it be great, hey, hey, wouldn’t that be great?
Lord, it’s for our sake, now wouldn’t that be great?
In the name of love, what’s a man so great
Be thinking of? In the name of love
What a man he was.
“Wouldn’t It Be Great” became a signature piece in Lynn’s catalog. She re-recorded it with Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette for their 1993 collaborative album Honky Tonk Angels and revisited it again in 2018 on her penultimate album of the same name, produced by her daughter, Patsy Lynn Russell, and John Carter Cash.
“That song has always meant so much to me because of the lyric, ‘When my fancy lace couldn’t turn your face,’” Russell said. “It’s such a powerful song, and it deserved to be recorded for this album with my mom. It truly shows her mastery in translating her feelings into song.”
Lynn also revealed that “Wouldn’t It Be Great” was the last song she sang to her husband as he passed away.
“This album is so meaningful because it contains the last song I sang to my husband, which I had written before he died,” Lynn shared in a 2018 interview. “In fact, he was leaving this world as I sang this song.”
Then she sang: Wouldn’t it be fine if you could say you love me / Just one time with a sober mind.
“It’s one of my all-time favorite lines I’ve ever written,” Lynn said, a testament to the enduring power of love, loss, and music intertwined.