SOMETHING OLD
Loretta Lynn - Coal Miner's Daughter
1971
Loretta Lynn - Coal Miner's Daughter
1971
An effective way of fully grasping how few female country artists wrote their own songs in the 20th Century is researching all your favorites. Thank God for Loretta Lynn, who was among the very first to do so. Frankly, it wouldn't make much sense for anyone else to write Coal Miner's Daughter, her signature and autobiographical song.
Lynn was the titular daughter, specifically of her father Ted, a Kentucky coal miner and farmer. Lynn was the second eldest of eight children raised during the Great Depression in Appalachia. As many miners did, Ted died of black lung disease in 1959. The song recounts only a glimpse of her childhood, which no doubted resonated with at least some of her audience who had experienced the same family history.
At 38 years old, she had experienced enough life to look back on this upbringing. She strikes a perfect balance between honestly portraying the depths of poverty and her gratitude for the life her family gave her anyway. Despite descriptions of her father's tireless physical labor and allusions to a lack of electricity and running water, Lynn also lets us know that we were poor, but we had love.
The end of the song reveals that she's returned home, where things have drastically changed, and she feels proud to be back where she comes from. It's such gorgeous and candid storytelling, and deeply influential for the female country artists that succeeded her.
SOMETHING NEW
Mitski - Lightning
February 27th, 2026
Mitski - Lightning
February 27th, 2026
Mitski's most recent album, Nothing's About to Happen to Me, closes by striking lightning.
Deep, steady, thunderous bass lines, cello, and distorted guitar complement echoing and electrifying vocals.
Lyrics like all hail the rain and asking for permission to be reincarnated as the rain after death allude to a powerful trust in nature. There is a profound sadness and looming feeling of death here, but it's clear that she's seeing the brightness through the darkness. She suggests that being dark in her rebirth would let her better reflect the moonlight, and that mourning (perhaps to the point of insomnia) would allow her to behold the sunrise.
This brief song concludes with a Marco Polo game with death. She evokes dark imagery of a night sky, painting a portrait of the lightning and thunder having a call & response moment during her demise.
There are many different ways to come to terms with death, and this brief yet enchanting closer seems like a good choice.
SOMETHING BORROWED
Rahill - Sun (Margo Guryan)
2024
Rahill - Sun (Margo Guryan)
2024
Sun and Lightning? Sounds about right for the Spring Equinox.
When the delightful Margo Guryan was honored with this compilation album of covers a couple years ago, I adored how the earnest sweetness/sadness was retained in covers like Clairo's Love Songs and Kate Bollinger's What Can I Give You, but I was also moved by the freshness of Sun by Rahill Jamalifard, known simply as Rahill.
Before we get to Rahill, let's talk Margo Guryan, who is only a household name to a certain sect of music lovers. She was a Queens girl before relocating to Massachusetts to study classical and jazz piano at Boston University, though went on to switch her major to composition to avoid performing. Eventually, she presented her songs to Atlantic Records and was promptly signed. Consistent with her shyness toward performing when the label had her record some songs, she claimed she "couldn't damn sing!" and was kept as a writer instead. In the 60s and 70s, she wrote songs recorded by Spanky & The Gang, Glen Campbell, Cass Elliot, Harry Belafonte, and others — and did, in fact, end up recording her own music, which is sung beautifully.
Sun was one that she recorded herself on her 1968 album Take a Picture, the only one ever released. The album's genre is categorized as Sunshine Pop and Baroque Pop on Wikipedia, the latter an especially apt description for the record's other songs that incorporated themes from Bach. Sun feels like it certainly fits in somewhere between those two genres, but there's just something special that sets it apart. I think Rahill identified it beautifully when she described her cover:
"This rendition of Sun embellishes all the things about her I love, her dips into the surreal, her airy jazz impressions and [of course] her unparalleled lyrical wit."
"This rendition of Sun embellishes all the things about her I love, her dips into the surreal, her airy jazz impressions and [of course] her unparalleled lyrical wit."
"Dips into the surreal" is such a perfect way to put it, and obviously informed how she wanted to approach the cover. There's a gorgeous spiritual feeling of light psychedelia here that reminds me a bit of The Beatles' Within You Without You. It's a beautiful tribute that I believe Margo Guryan would have loved had she lived to hear it.
SOMETHING... IRISH
Sinéad O'Connor - Famine
1994
Sinéad O'Connor - Famine
1994
Okay, I want to talk about Ireland.
With only a few days since St. Patrick's Day while still in the midst of Women's History Month, I figured we ought to shine a light on the brilliant, sorely missed Sinéad O'Connor.
By interpolating the famed Eleanor Rigby chorus, O'Connor asks Lennon and McCartney's pressing question about the lonely people: where do they all come from?
She may not precisely answer that query, but she answers some of a similar gravity:
Where did the poverty come from?
Where did the high rates of addiction come from?
Where did the potato famine come from? (Hint: it was not a famine)
Where did the poverty come from?
Where did the high rates of addiction come from?
Where did the potato famine come from? (Hint: it was not a famine)
The answer is, unsurprisingly, England.
In only five minutes in this unique hip hop track, Sinéad explores how colonial oppression imposed intentional starvation in Ireland and set in motion centuries of future intergenerational trauma weaved in the nation that has caused alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, child abuse, loss of culture, and overall "massive self-destruction."
Sinéad never shied away from talking about uncomfortable topics, knowing that we cannot allow discomfort to excuse and effectively culturally sanction acts of genuine evil. Her reputation for unfettered honesty did not encourage the world to be kind to her, but her resilience in spite of it makes her even more of one of the most significant female songwriters (and public figures in general) we've seen.