"Coal Miner's Daughter" is one of the greatest country songs ever.  It's nearly perfect.  So it's hard to imagine that it was originally SIX verses LONGER.  That's what LORETTA LYNN told "American Songwriter".

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She said, quote, "(My producer) said, 'Loretta, there's already been one 'El Paso' and we'll never have another one.  Get in that room and start taking some of those verses off.'  Yeah, I took six verses off."

Not only did Loretta trash the six verses... but she can't remember what she wrote.  She said, quote, "I wished I'd never thrown them away.  If I'd kept them, I could record them now and put them back in the song.

"I threw them away and I should never have done that."

(You can check out the lyrics to "Coal Miner's Daughter" HERE.  I can't imagine six more verses, can you?  And in case you're interested, here are the lyrics to MARTY ROBBINS' classic "El Paso".  It IS long.)

One more thing.  You know "American Songwriter" wasn't going to let Loretta get away without asking her to give advice to songwriters.

Here's what she said, quote, "Write about the truth.  If you write about the truth, somebody's living that.  Not just somebody, there's a lot of people."

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