Todd Snider and Loretta Lynn

We were lucky enough to catch Todd and Ray Wylie Hubbard the other night in Paradise Ca.

But this is from Todd's fb page.

i knew loretta thru her daughter peggy.

she is married to one of my oldest and closest friends mark marchetti

and because of them loretta knew of me.

she asked if i wanted to try to write a song

we sat at her office and wrote a song called

"dont tempt me"

and i just remember that we were laughing the whole time

and that i felt like i'd really made a friend.

then she asked me out to the house to write another song.

this time we went to her writing cabin and we were playing guitars

and talking about what we could sing about.

she said "go look in that refrigerator todd"

so i did, and when i opened it

a bunch of yellow legal pads with her words written all over them, fell out onto the floor.

the refrigerator was stuffed completely full of bits of lyrics by loretta lynn

that went back to the sixties.

she said smoke one of your doobies

and go thru those.

see if anything jumps out at you.

i sat there on the floor going thru them.

i couldn't believe what i was seeing.

i quickly found a lyric that said

"i love you more than she ever will

but the only way she can get a man is steal.

i don't know if i should tell you this or not

but she's got everything it takes to take everything you've got."

and i said "loretta, my god, what is this?"

and she said "oh yeah i remember that little bitch"

she asked me to sing it

knowing i'd only seen the lyrics

so i just sang a melody without thinking

and she said that was it.

then she made up the rest

as if "we" were doing it.

i couldn't keep my mouth shut

but not cuz i was talking.

she said "always keep the poetry out"

she said they ruined lyrics.

swoon...

i'll never forget that.

she wanted to know about elvis costello

because she was working with him

and she thought he wanted to use too many chords.

she mentioned the scruffy kid from Minnesota

who got caught out with his name.

she said he had some songs she admired

and that he seemed to still be doing really good.

i said "bob dylan?"

and she said yes.

she said he was good at lyrics.

when she recorded the song i wrote with her

she did it in the cabin johnny cash passed away in.

john carter told me that she would park her bus by the cabin

and stay over night just below his bedroom window.

one night at three a.m.

he woke to the sound of some old country music

and looked out his window to see

loretta lynn

spinning barefoot in the grass

like a teenager.

she was 80.

the next day he asked her what she was doing

and she said

"i was dancing with your dad"

he said the next night she did it again.

i have to admit i had a genuine crush on her.

i loved her so much.

she was so funny...

i would laugh til i was coughing

she was magic.

my buddy mark told me

that earlier in the day on tuesday

loretta said,

"i'm going to heaven tonight."    (This part don't mean shit Ras.)