Coal Miner's Daughter

As an adult I have become interested in country music. My interest, however, has been more focused on "classic", traditional, and neo-traditional than on top 40 country. I suppose this is natural given my interests in Celtic and and American folk music. The closer country come to those sources, the more appealing I find it. The closer it comes to pop or rock, the less so. This is, by the way, true for the entire history of country music. I dislike the "Nashville sound" of the late fifties and early sixties and the crossover country of the seventies as much as I dislike the the pop-rock masquerading as country today.

If I had to pick one song to represent country music, it would be "Coal Miner's Daughter". Nothing I can say will really add much to the song. On a linguistic note, I will note that the song does not start "I was born...", it starts, "I was born'd....". She also rhymes "hard" with "tired". Such a pure regional accent could make it onto the radio today. On a related note, I once read that Loretta Lynn's accent is probably the accent closest to the London accent of Shakespeare's time.