Loretta Lynn wrote hit song to ‘Dear Uncle Sam’
This week in 1965: Seven
U.S. G.I.s were killed and 126 wounded in a Viet Cong raid at Pleiku; U.S. jets pounded Don Hoi guerrilla in a reprisal for Viet Cong raids; 84 people died when a DC-7 crashed off Jones Beach in New York; and a singer from Butcher Hollow , Ky., had her ninth hit record.
A lot of songs have been written with the writer putting himself (or herself) in the time, the place, or the song situation.
According to Loretta Lynn, that’s just how she wrote her 1965 hit, “Dear Uncle Sam.”
Lynn commented, “I got the idea for that song when the Vietnam War was in bad shape and things were not going good. And I had known several women who lost their boyfriends or husbands in the war and I just put myself in their place and wrote “Dear Uncle Sam.”
Lynn’s Decca Records single “Dear Uncle Sam” came on the country music charts Feb. 5, 1966 and made it to No. 4. It was her 9th charted song and was on the charts for 14 weeks.
Lynn placed 78 songs on the country charts between 1960 and 1981—including 16 No. 1s. She also scored hit duets with Ernest Tubb and with Conway Twitty.
Lynn joined The Grand Ole Opry in 1962. She was inducted into The Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1988.
To subscribe to our free “Country Music Classics” email newsletter, send a blank email to: country-music-classics-on@mail-list.com
Doug Davis & The Good Ole Boys will perform at 10:30 a.m. today for Wake Village Senior Citizens.