Back to the Country

”Loretta Lynn had started working on her 25th studio LP, Back to the Country, in 1972. Its eventual opening track, ”The Pill,” was a song about the birth control pill and the freedoms it could give a woman from – but not limited to – a philandering husband. At first, it was put in Lynn’s back pocket after a recording session when the label deemed it too controversial to release. The label was right, of course. It was controversial. But they were wrong about the consequences of releasing a song so polarizing. Though radio stations across the country banned ”The Pill,” that only made it more alluring to fans who helped boost its sales, making it one of her biggest sellers of all time. Lynn may not have been close to being one of the “outlaw” musicians of the late ’60s – not decked in leather nor caught smoking weed with Willie Nelson – but you could easily argue she was among the most outlaw of them all.”