Miss Me When I'm Gone

chapter 35



“Stand by Your Man”

I’m not sure if every Tammy Wynette fan should be required to come to the defense of that single song, or even to like it in particular. The song, like so many of her hits, was mostly written by her producer, Billy Sherrill. And there is so much more to Tammy than this song—which isn’t a particular favorite of mine—that I find discussions of it rather boring. Still, I suppose my liberal background requires I address it before I proceed any further on this trip, before I sing Tammy’s praises along with those of Dolly and Loretta.

Admittedly, before I started listening to more country music, this was my uninformed view of Tammy Wynette: a country-western Phyllis Schlafly in sequins. All I knew of her was that she sang that particular song.

Since then, I’ve watched the same early television performance of “Stand by Your Man” countless times. In it, Tammy is wearing a red-sequined dress that’s all wrong for her figure. Her hair is an absurdly high helmet of whorled light blond. In this Opry appearance, she is clearly a very nervous performer—you can see it in all of the videos from early in her career. She barely moves her body as she sings. Her face looks stiff, almost pained. She rolls her eyes back slightly between lines, as if trying to remember the words. She looks like a kid in a spelling bee, just trying to get it right. I have immediate sympathy for her—for her discomfort, for the care she puts into the song. And for most of the song, the meaning of the words dissolve in this sympathy. I like her regardless of whether she or I believe in standing by our men, on traditional principle or otherwise.

I also feel bad that her signature song happened to come out at the height of women’s lib. Later, similar songs of hers might have been more defiance than coincidence. But with “Stand by Your Man”—there she was, still a struggling mother of three, her career still new and fragile, trying to take her one shot at stardom, trying to get her song perfect, when these northeastern intellectual types come flying out of nowhere (at least, nowhere Tammy knew or understood) and pick on her, her dream, and her developing act.

People often point out that Tammy was simply singing about values with which she was raised. Aside from that, in the context of country music history, it seems odd that feminists singled out Tammy. Sure, the song seems to command an attitude that is offensive to feminism, but country music is full of songs about people who stick with their mates (male or female) even though their behavior confuses them, depresses them, drives them crazy (“You Win Again,” “[I’m Not Your] Steppin’ Stone,” “You Can Always Come Back”). Tammy was singing about something her fellow country musicians—male and female—had sung about hundreds of times before. It was just the particular wording and timing (and the skill with which she sang it) of “Stand by Your Man” that got it noticed.

As for Tammy’s sad, sad delivery, it is, again, a part of the tradition of a genre of music that has always stressed that love can be painful and depressing and motivates men and women to do unhealthy and irrational things. No one’s ever begrudged her onetime partner George Jones his unrelentingly pathetic hits: “He Stopped Loving Her Today” (really, just listen to it), “When the Grass Grows over Me,” “If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me.” You don’t have to like the genre, but it doesn’t make sense to isolate one artist and song for being pathetic. And a woman is, I believe, allowed to be just as pitiful in love as a man.

To be fair, though, Tammy did have a few subsequent songs that cross the line for me. After feminists exploded at “Stand by Your Man,” Tammy and her producer seemed to enjoy thumbing their noses at them, producing “Singing My Song,” “Run, Woman, Run,” and the ridiculous “Don’t Liberate Me (Love Me),” which thankfully never went up the charts. (Also good for a laugh is the embarrassing “Good Lovin’ [Makes It Right],” although frankly I don’t think all of the advice in that one is entirely off the mark.)

So while I don’t think the reaction to “Stand by Your Man” was fair, I can see how some of Tammy’s subsequent music and fake-eyelash-batting persona would have chafed at feminists of the day. Truly, I am grateful for the feminists who came before me—the very ones who found Tammy’s music offensive. And I am grateful for Tammy, her voice and her heart. Thankfully, I was not alive in 1968 and therefore do not have to choose between the two.

And by the way, if we are to accept that gender and sexuality is a spectrum, I believe we have to accept that some people are going to fall on the traditional side of it. Oddly, I think it can be harder for someone of my generation and background to accept a woman who dresses and acts in the bleached-blond feminine tradition of Tammy Wynette than a man who does the same for a gay pride parade. But how is that fair? Hasn’t the point always been freedom of choice in one’s lifestyle, one’s relationships?

This is a freedom that Tammy actually exercised—at least, for much of her life. Everyone who knows the basic facts of her life knows she wasn’t into standing by a man at all costs. She married her first husband rashly, despite the protests and disapproval of her family. She left him even though she had two kids, one on the way, and no job—because she realized she didn’t love him and she wanted more for herself—in particular, a shot at being a singer, which he didn’t support. She left number two for George Jones. She left George Jones because, although she loved him, seven years of his drunken high jinks had taken a toll. Marriage number four was a three-week farce. Husband number five was the only one she stood by, though he surely didn’t deserve it. But that’s another story, too long and sad and perplexing for this piece on a song she sang before she’d even met him.

In the end, more than standing by her man, I think Tammy stood by her song. She insisted that “Stand by Your Man” was “just a pretty love song,” and despite growing tired of having to defend it, she clearly drew great joy from its popularity. Her autobiography was titled Stand by Your Man. The doorbell of her mansion played the tune. She sang the hell out of that song and loved the hell out of the success that it brought her. Whatever she was personally, professionally, this was a woman who knew what she wanted, worked her ass off for it, and refused to apologize for it when she got it.

Does she really need any more defense than that?



—Tammyland