To help promote the April 7 release of her new book Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust (Grand Central Publishing), Loretta Lynn shared a new recording of "I Fall to Pieces." On April 16, Lynn unveiled a music video for the song, which doubles as a tribute to her kinship with Cline.
Videos by Wide Open Country
The Harlan Howard and Hank Cochran co-write became one of country music's most transcendent hits after Patsy Cline's 1961 recording achieved crossover success.
"On the night of the session, we absolutely did not want to do the standard 4:4 shuffle that had by then been done to death," Howard recalled, as quoted by his official website. "We were trying all kinds of other (basic rhythm) combinations, but they all just laid there and bled all over the floor. So, it had to be the shuffle then, like it or not. But the amazing thing was, once Patsy got into the groove, she just caressed those lyrics and that melody so tenderly that it was just like satin. We knew we had magic in the can when, on the fourth take, every grown man in that studio was bawling like a baby and (producer Owen Bradley) said `That's the one.'"
Lynn famously sang the song that same year on Ernest Tubb's Midnight Jamboree radio broadcast as a tribute to Cline, who'd recently been in a near-fatal car crash. Cline heard the kind stranger's song from her hospital bed and sent her husband Charlie Dick to arrange an in-person meeting that launched one of country music's most storied friendships.
Between films like the biopics Coal Miner's Daughter and Sweet Dreams and Ken Burns' Country Music docu-series, the origins of the Lynn and Cline friendship might be better chronicled than anything from Cline's career, including the tale of how a struggling, young songwriter named Willie Nelson got her to cut his song "Crazy."
Lynn recut the song, which had appeared on her 1977 covers album I Remember Patsy, at Cash Cabin Studio with her daughter Patsy Lynn Russell and another child of country music royalty, John Carter Cash, as co-producers.
Read More: The Lifetime Movie About Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline is Here
Per a press release, Lynn and Russell co-wrote Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust as "an up-close-and-personal portrait of a friendship that defined a generation and changed country music indelibly-and a meditation on love, loss and legacy."
"I Fall to Pieces" Lyrics
I fall to pieces
Each time I see you again
I fall to pieces
How can I be just your friend?
You want me to act like we've never kissed
You want me to forget (to forget)
Pretend we've never met (never met)
And I've tried and I've tried, but I haven't yet
You walk by and I fall to pieces
I fall to pieces
Each time someone speaks your name (speaks your name)
I fall to pieces
Time only adds to the flame
You tell me to find someone else to love
Someone who'll love me too (love me too)
The way you used to do (used to do)
But each time I go out with someone new
You walk by and I fall to pieces
You walk by and I fall to pieces
Now Watch: Songs Every Loretta Lynn Fan Knows By Heart
https://rumble.com/embed/u7gve.v4jb7z/
