Remember When Loretta Lynn Scored Her First No. 1 Hit?

Loretta Lynn is one of the most important singer-songwriters in the history of country music, but even legends have to start somewhere. Lynn was already a veteran country singer when she scored her first No. 1 hit with "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)" on Feb. 11, 1967.

Lynn co-wrote the song with her sister, Peggy Sue Wright. Owen Bradley produced the track, which was the first of a number of controversial songs Lynn would write and record that came to include "Rated X, " "The Pill" and more. Lynn's own turbulent marriage to her husband, Oliver "Doolittle" Lynn, inspired the song, which depicts a married woman rejecting her husband's sexual advances when he comes home very drunk.

"Well you thought I'd be waitin' up when you came home last night / You'd been out with all the boys and you ended up half tight / But liquor and love that just don't mix leave a bottle or me behind / And don't come home a drinkin' with lovin' on your mind," Lynn sings in the pioneering song, which made Lynn the first female country artist ever to hit No. 1 with a song she'd written herself. It marked only the seventh time a female artist topped the country charts, putting Lynn in an exclusive club that included Goldie Hill, Connie Smith, Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline — the latter two of whom had scored two No. 1 hits apiece.

"Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)" was a career-changing song for Lynn, becoming the first of 16 No. 1 hits she would eventually place. The song helped her win the CMA Awards' first-ever Female Vocalist of the Year title in 1967, setting her up for superstardom in the 1970s that would end with a best-selling book about her life, 1976's Coal Miner's Daughter, and a 1980 movie of the same name for which Sissy Spacek would win a Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Lynn.

Loretta Lynn died on Oct. 4, 2022, at the age of 90.

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