Coal Miner's Daughter was forced to remove a third of the lyrics from her autobiographical song

Coal Miner's Daughter is an autobiographical song by the influential country-genre songwriter Loretta Lynn in which she describes the hard household chores of her mother raising eight children and the other hardships of her poor family sustained only by her father's earnings. The song was recorded in 1969 and released a year later after which it topped the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart.

Initially, Loretta Lynn wrote nine verses for Coal Miner's Daughter but was forced to remove three of them at the insistence of her producer who feared that such a long song was unlikely to be successful.

Subsequently, Loretta Lynn recalled that it was very difficult for her to choose which verses she should remove from the song since she was sure that even nine stanzas contained only some of the facts and events that she wanted to express in the lyrics. Making this painful choice drove her into serious depression as often happens when the rules of show business suppress the interests of the artists.

Listen to Coal Miner's Daughter by Loretta Lynn:

Compositionally, Coal Miner's Daughter showcases a harmonic sequence consisting exclusively of major chords which, together with such soulful lyrics, conveys optimism amid shades of irony. The harmony is written flawlessly and contains complex elements such as double dominant chords and sudden modulations that appear after the second and fourth verses to refresh the narration.

Discover more songs composed in Ionian major mode and check out their harmonic analysis in the following articles: