By Katherine M Acosta
Countercurrents.org<\/p>\n
In 1975, country legend Loretta Lynn released a song with these lyrics:<\/p>\n
All these years I\u2019ve stayed at home
While you had all your fun
And every year that\u2019s gone by
Another baby\u2019s come
There\u2019s gonna be some changes made
Right here on nursery hill
You\u2019ve set this chicken your last time
\u2018Cause now I\u2019ve got the pill.<\/p>\n
She was denounced in pulpits throughout the country and the song was banned from many radio stations. It wasn\u2019t the first time a song of hers had been banned. A few years earlier, her hit song, Rated X , about the double standard applied to divorced women, sparked similar outrage from the usual suspects, and was also banned. Lynn didn\u2019t set out to make big political statements. She simply wrote from her life experience and the raw truths she expressed resonated with her many fans. In a 2010 interview with Terry Gross on NPR\u2019s Fresh Air, Lynn remarked that she recorded a lot of songs that tell it like it is. \u201cI guess,\u201d she mused, \u201cwe\u2019re not to talk about the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lynn had her first child when she was just 14 years old, and four children by the time she was19. By the time she recorded \u201cThe Pill\u201d she\u2019d had six children, (including a set of twins), and three miscarriages. She never took birth control pills, but would have, she told Terry Gross, had they been available to her. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for a woman,\u201d she said, \u201cto have so many kids.\u201d<\/p>\n