Coal Miner's Daughter

Album

Coal Miner's Daughter

Label

Decca Records

Genre

Country

Duration

2:00

Composer(s)

Loretta Lynn

Entered Chart

Dec 5, 1970

Peak Date

Dec 26, 1970

Released

October 5, 1970

Recorded

October 1, 1969 Studio Bradley's Barn

Catalog #

Decca 32749

B-Side

"The Man of the Hous

Loretta Lynn really was born a coal miner's daughter on April 14, 1932, and this autobiographical song reflects the hardships of growing up in rural Kentucky, where there was little money but a lot of love. Far from a lament, Lynn wears this song like a badge of honor and sings about how proud she is of her background. It was a change of pace for Lynn, who had gained popularity with tough-talking, assertive country classics like "Don't Come Home A' Drinkin (With Lovin' on Your Mind)" and "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)." Lynn named her 1976 autobiography after this song. In 1980, it was adapted into the biopic Coal Miner's Daughter, with Sissy Spacek in the lead role. Spacek, who was originally supposed to lip-synch, performed all the songs for the film. Her version of the title track was a country hit at #23, and her portrayal of Lynn earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress. Working in the coal mines was a perilous job that offered little reward. Even when the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ensured workers a federal minimum wage, 25 cents an hour, it didn't do much for coal workers, who weren't paid by the hour, but by the ton. Lynn's father, Theodore Melvin "Ted" Webb, faced risks of collapses, gas explosions, and gas poisoning and a host of potential illnesses every day, and if he was lucky, he could bring home a few dollars for his trouble. Webb lost his job at the Van Lear Coal Mines when he suffered a stroke when he was already struggling with pneumoconiosis (black lung), a chronic lung disease from regularly breathing in the dust in the mines. He would die of another stroke in 1959 at age 51. This topped the country chart for one week in December 1970. It was also Lynn's first crossover to the Hot 100, where it peaked at #83. When Lynn wrote this song, it had four additional verses that her producer, Owen Bradley, told her to remove. "He said, 'There's already been one 'El Paso,' and there's never going to be another one,' Lynn told the TV Critics Association in 2016. "So I fiddled around and fiddled around, and finally I got four verses that I took off of 'Coal Miner's Daughter.' I wished I hadn't, but I did." Sadly, these verses were lost forever, as Lynn left them in the studio. Lynn re-recorded this with Miranda Lambert and Sheryl Crow for the 2010 album Coal Miner's Daughter: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn. This was featured on the TV series 7th Heaven in the 2004 episode "Song of Lucy." Lynn was supposed to be writing a bluegrass tune for the Osborne Brothers when she realized she was writing a distinctly female song. She said, "By the time I finished the first line I said, 'Hey, that's not going to do. They can't be coal miner's daughters - what's wrong with me?" Kacey Musgraves performed this song in tribute to Lynn at the Grammy Awards in 2023. Lynn died five months earlier at 90.

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 shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar

My daddy worked all night in the Van Lear coal mines
All day long in the field a hoin' corn
Mommy rocked the babies at night
And read the Bible by the coal oil light
And ever' thing 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
She'd smile in mommy's understanding way

In the summertime we didn't have shoes to wear
But in the wintertime we'd all get a brand new pair
From a mail order catalog
Money made from selling a hog
Daddy always managed to get the money somewhere

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 'cause we were tired
I never thought of ever leaving Butcher Holler

Well, a lot of things have changed since a way back then
And it's so good to be back home again
Not much left but the floor, nothing lives here anymore
Except the memories of a coal miner's daughter