The Singles Jukebox

First album in 12 years, and first entry on the Jukebox. Momentous!

[Video][Website]
[5.86]

Anthony Easton: It’s an American Recordings move, which means that her humour has been replaced with a mawkish faux gravitas — but her singular voice remains, and though a little more gnarled, is better preserved than it has any right to be. Extra points for not having anything to do with Jack White. 
[8]

Alfred Soto: Everyone involved hopes Lynn doesn’t die this year so that reporters don’t treat this harmless ditty as an epitaph. The pieces fit into the right places: the Floyd Cramer-inspired piano lines, the casualness with which Lynn winces from the cutes. But the song’s predictability forces her into a corner, and I’m not accustomed to it.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: Self-pity was never in her line, which is why she steps away from the maudlin possibilities suggested by that title, keeping a poker voice and turning the verses into gnomic folk essays. Still, that refrain drags down the song: lots of us will obviously miss her, and she knows it damn well, and after a career of making the personal political and vice versa it’s frankly unbelievable for her to suddenly be speaking in the voice of the everygrandma.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: Understated production focusing on an acoustic guitar and Lynn’s legendary voice (courtesy of her daughter Patsy and Johnny Cash’s son John) is well-suited for this plea for someone to miss her when she’s gone. Of course, everyone will – Lynn is the very definition of national treasure (in the U.S.). This single from her first album in over a decade does nothing whatsoever to change that.
[7]

Brad Shoup: The answer, I guess, is all the beneficiaries of Lynn’s hinted-at heroic deeds. The mood is calm, accepting, perhaps placid. The sawing fiddle stays on the right side of doleful, the bass just kinda huffs away. And Loretta herself is so plain-spoken, so declarative, that something this easy to listen to becomes something very difficult indeed.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: I’m tempted to give this a high score just because I love how Lynn’s mouth gives the “o” in “gonna” and “gone” such a mixture of sadness and whimsy. But waxing over a vowel sound indicates that the neat package of the song is a bit perfunctory, like the platonic ideal of an old folk song that people don’t really write any more. So, some points then because her voice is a timeless gift, but that’s it.
[5]

Cassy Gress: Lyrics aside, this sonically belongs on a Kentucky tourism commercial, and in fact I may have heard something very similar on one before.  She sounds great (especially for being 83, good lord), and I like that little waver on that last “who’s gonna miss me when I’m goOOone” in the second chorus.  However, I think it repeats the chorus at least one too many times at the end, and the chorus is too short for that not to be noticeable.
[5]