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Loretta Lynn The Pill Analysis

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Oral birth control in the United States has a long history of controversy. For many years after it was legalized for married couples it was still considered taboo to talk about. So of course, Loretta Lynn, appropriately named Queen of Country, wrote and performed a song about it. This spunky, out spoken, record setting country goddess saw absolutely no qualm when it came to discussing, “the pill”. Although this ground-breaking song on the birth control forefront might seem revolutionary, it was nothing new for an artist like Lynn, who characteristically wrote songs about the hushed aspects of domestic life. Loretta Lynn’s song, “The Pill”, pushed social boundaries in the 1970’s by encouraging married women, especially in rural areas, to take control of their lives with the use of oral birth control. Lynn did so by informing rural women of the normalcy of oral birth control. Loretta Lynn was born Loretta Webb on April 14, 1932, in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. Lynn grew up in a small poor Appalachian coal-mining community and was the second of eight children. Loretta’s career began when she started singing in church as a child. When she was 16, she married Oliver Lynn. The couple soon moved to Custer, Washington. During their first four years in Washington Lynn has four children, Betty Sue, Jack Benny, Ernest Ray and Clara Marie. Lynn was still passionate about music and began to play at local venues. By 1960, she had released her first single, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.” She moved to Nashville, where she continued to perform and promote her music. Moving to Nashville was arguably one of Lynn’s best decisions. That is where she met one of her best friends and role models, Patsy Cline, as well as find fame and recognition there. During her career Lynn has garnered an impressive release of more than 160 songs, 60 albums, a total sale of 45 million records, ten Number 1 albums and sixteen Number 1 singles on the country charts, and was the first women to win the the CMA’s Entertainer of The Year. Loretta Lynn’s most popular song, “The Pill”, was written about a married woman taking birth control. Today, this a common occurrence for American women. However, in 1975, there was a lot of controversy still surrounding the

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