Consumer Guide Album

Loretta Lynn: One's on the Way [Decca, 1972]
Lynn projects total empathy for the protagonist of the title song, a Topeka housewife who knows about women's oppression firsthand but regards "women's lib" as a glamorous media event, as distant as Liz's "million-dollar pact." An epochal two-and-a-half minutes, class-conscious in the great country tradition, and I don't care if it was written by a man (Shel Silverstein) who also works for Johnny Cash, Dr. Hook, and Playboy. What follows is an ordinary country album done right, avoiding banal covers and providing auxiliary songs of consistent interest. Lynn's "L-O-V-E, Love," about talking dirty, is among the best, and there's not a bummer in the bunch. How many works of rock can you say that about these days? B+