A Love Affair: American Politics And Country Music

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2022

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Politicians have long relied on country music stars to burnish their rural reputations — and country stars have long been political agitators. From Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton to Charley Pride and The Chicks, we do a deep-dive into the relationship between country music and U.S. politics.

This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving, national political correspondent Don Gonyea, and national correspondent Debbie Elliott.

This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Katherine Swartz.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamer Keith. I cover the White House.
0:09.6	I'm Ron Elving, Editor-Core-respondent.
0:11.9	And I'm Don Gagne, National Political Correspondent.
0:14.8	And NPR's Debbie Elliott is also here. Hey Debbie.
0:19.0	Hi, thanks for inviting me. So we invited you. We invited all of you here because we are going to talk about country music and American politics.
0:28.5	And this all started the idea for this pod with Ron, who I know that you've been thinking about this for a while ever since the death of Loretta Lynn.
0:38.7	She passed away in the fall at the age of 90. So if you could start by telling us who she is and what got you going on this idea.
0:47.9	Loretta Lynn was known as the first lady of country music. She had an extraordinary career that went on for decades and decades.
0:55.7	But she is in many senses the central character, not only in Cole Meiner's daughter, the famous movie with Sissy Spacehack playing her.
1:05.9	But also in a movie called Nashville, which is not nearly as well known as a movie, but which was about the Nashville of the early 1970s.
1:16.8	And poor saw many things in terms of the use of country music and politics.
1:22.4	A very sophisticated film and Loretta Lynn, I just cannot imagine country music without Loretta Lynn.
1:29.5	She is a musical icon and in a sense a cultural icon because she expresses the degree to which country music comes out of the populist tradition of American cultural pride in humble origins.
1:45.4	Is there a particular song that when you think of Loretta Lynn, you think of the song and what she means?
1:52.0	Well done, wouldn't that have to be, wouldn't that have to be Cole Meiner's daughter?
1:55.9	It would, it would because that was the title of her biography. There was a film, but it's also such an iconic song that tells her story.
2:07.2	Well I was born to Cole Meiner's daughter.
2:14.5	In a cabin on a hill in but your holler.
2:19.4	And let's not forget another song Loretta Lynn did. This was in the mid 70s.
2:25.2	It was called the pill and it was a hit on country radio.
2:32.0	The pill being the birth control pill.
2:35.2	Exactly and this, this became a feminist anthem.
	...

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