Loretta Lynn – You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)

I’ve always liked Loretta Lynn…I’ve met the lady and she was one of the most down to earth people I’ve ever met. I do remember this song being played when I was really young…that title has to get your attention.  Being married to her husband Doolittle (Oliver Vanetta “Doolittle” Lynn), was not an easy task, but he was an influence in all of her songs, including her next single “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),”

Loretta made a comeback in the early 2000’s with Jack White producing Van Lear Rose in 2004.

Loretta had a very successful career. She had 16 number 1 hits,  51 Top Ten hits, and  76 Songs in the top 100 in the country charts. This song peaked at #2 in the Billboard Hot 100 Country Charts in 1966. 

Loretta talked about the inspiration to write this song: “When I wrote ‘You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),’ this little woman come backstage, and she said, ‘Loretta, my husband didn’t bring me to the show tonight.’ She said, ‘He’s got a girlfriend, and he brought her. She’s sitting out in that second row with my husband.’ And we kind of pulled the curtain back and looked at him. I looked around at that lady that came backstage, and I said, ‘Honey, she ain’t woman enough to take your man.’ I went in the dressing room right then and wrote that song before the show ever started.”

 

From Songfacts

The biggest hit of Loretta Lynn’s career to this point, “You Ain’t Woman Enough” went to #2 on the Country charts and the You Ain’t Woman Enough album hit #1. Written by Lynn, it shows her strong side, as she confronts a woman who is going after her man. No wilting flower, Lynn makes it clear that she’s not going to give up on her man – especially to this common floozy. She sings:

Donna Jean Godchaux often performs this song and sang it on stage when she was a vocalist with The Grateful Dead. Another popular cover is by the husband and wife duo Joey + Rory, who released it as a download in 2010. When we spoke with Joey Feek of Joey + Rory, she told us: “I didn’t know a lot of Loretta’s story until later in my young adult life, and then watching Coal Miner’s Daughter and reading the book. Just the strength that she had – she just said what she thought, and she didn’t have anything to hold back. There were parts of it that I just loved, because she was innocent. And on ‘You Ain’t Woman Enough,’ Loretta was raising that flag about supporting her man and standing beside him and fighting for him and everything else. She held that flag way before any other female country artist did. And then we have a song like ‘Cheater,’ and there’s some parallels there. I just love Loretta. You just can’t help but love her, and you hear her talk and she’s honest with every word that she says. She doesn’t hide a thing.”

Lynn says there was a time when a woman went after her husband and she had to put a stop to it. She took this woman to “Fist City.”

You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)

You’ve come to tell me something you say I ought to know
That he don’t love me anymore and I’ll have to let him go
You say you’re gonna take him oh but I don’t think you can
‘Cause you ain’t woman enough to take my man

Women like you they’re a dime a dozen you can buy ’em anywhere
For you to get to him I’d have to move over
And I’m gonna stand right here
It’ll be over my dead body so get out while you can
‘Cause you ain’t woman enough to take my man

Sometimes a man start lookin’ at things that he don’t need
He took a second look at you but he’s in love with me
Well I don’t know where they leave you oh but I know where I’ll stand
And you ain’t woman enough to take my man

Women like you they’re a dime a dozen you can buy ’em anywhere
For you to get to him I’d have to move over
And I’m gonna stand right here
It’ll be over my dead body so get out while you can
‘Cause you ain’t woman enough to take my man
No, you ain’t woman enough to take my man