what would Loretta do?

It was Loretta Lynn's 77th birthday on Saturday.

I've been watching videos of her all weekend long.  There's so much to admire about her, I don't even know where to begin.  It's best to just enjoy how tough, honest and sweet she is.

Here's my top three picks:

1. Fist City
2. Don't Come Home A-Drinkin'
3. You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)

I particularly like the way she generously smiles through the delivery of all the threats, ultimatums and general shit talkin'.

From what I've read, every one of these songs was written about her husband.  To give you a sense of her background, I found this quote that summarizes it quite succinctly: 

When you shake all the stardust off this tale, what you must begin with is an uneducated child from one of the most isolated cultures in the United States who was given in marriage to a man some nine years her senior, a man who was a violent and sometimes brutal alcoholic, who was similarly uneducated and without any job skills to speak of. Add to that a migration to the state of Washington, where the child had no friends or relations; the arrival of four babies; regular—and reportedly mutual—domestic violence; and an income so unstable that there were times when the family had nothing to eat but dandelion greens, and you have a situation that might well have led to murder. But what actually happened was so improbable, so unimaginable, that the lives of Loretta and Mooney Lynn became one of the great legends of the twentieth century.  - Martha Hume

Happy birthday, Loretta.  You're a hell of a woman.