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Have Mercy
Loretta Lynn
Van Lear Rose
2004

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but this is one of my all-time favourite albums.

Yep.

I was reunited with it after scavenging the used CD stores on Mont-Royal; in the days afterward, I found myself turning towards my own hard-copy CD collection and, eventually, to Loretta Lynn.  Lynn's 2004 album is the result of a collaboration with Jack White (the picture of him skulking behind some trees in the liner notes makes me smile--a strange juxtaposition next to Loretta Lynn in her puffy, blue Glinda-the-good-witch dress) and the first album where Lynn wrote or co-wrote all of the songs herself.

I know I have a penchant for nasal voices, but sometimes even I am surprised by how much I adore this album.  I bought it during the beginnings of my outside-the-comfort-zone musical-discovery development...when I avidly read Rolling Stone and carried a copy of the magazine with me at all times--often pulling it out as a shield between myself and my classmates in my undergrad classes.  There was a lot of excitement surrounding the release of this album and, under the influence of what I had read, I too wanted to be a part of that excitement.

This is an album I can listen to from start to finish.  I wanted to pick the perfect introductory song for you ("Portland Oregon" was my initial choice--a song that has appeared on many a mix CD, but when I heard "Have Mercy" again, I knew it was the one I had to post).  THIS IS AN EXCELLENT SONG.  It just is.  Tinges of classic rock and country, those pounding drums, the range of Lynn's voice...It has an energy that fills me right up.