Tammy Wynette - Stand By Your Man

The song reached # 1 on the charts of US Hot Country Songs, for three consecutive weeks, and remained a total of 22 weeks in the charts, he also reached number # 1 on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks charts. He also reached number 1 in: U.K, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands. He was the fifth number one in Tammy's career. This song became the most successful song of Tammy Wynette's career and has been recorded by many other singers.

Stand By Your Man

History behind the song:

Wynette said he wrote the song in 15 minutes and spent a lifetime defending it. She insisted that she had no political motives, and that it was “just a beautiful love song.” The song came from an idea that originated with Wynette producer Billy Sherrill, who along with Wynette is one of the two accredited writers. Tammy At first he didn’t like the song very much because it was different from everything he had written before, and because there is a high note that it cost him to sing. He said that, over time, he came to love the song, and came to the point where she “couldn’t do a show without it.”

However, the women’s liberation movement (“women’s lib”) thought that the feeling in the song was contrary to her cause, and Wynette became her example of a willing wife willing to defer her husband. When he was pressed on the subject, he told Melody Maker: “I can sympathize very easily because I have seen it happen in Mississippi, where I was raised, and Alabama, when I was a child, where a woman could not do a third of what a man could do an identical job. I can sympathize with that, and I feel it is very wrong. A woman should be equal to a man for anything she is capable of doing, but I still feel that there are many things that she is not able to do “Physically. Personally, I don’t really like the idea of digging trenches or climbing telephone poles. I’d rather keep something a little more feminine. I wouldn’t want to lose the little courtesies that have always been extended, like lighting cigarettes and opening doors, and taking out chairs and things like that. I enjoy it. I guess I just enjoy being a woman.

Anecdotes:

The song has appeared in several movies: in 1970, Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson and Karen Black. He also appeared in The Blues Brothers (1980) (in which it was sung by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi), in the 1987 film The Fourth Protocol, starring Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan, and at the end of the 1992 film winner of the Academy Award, The Crying Game (in which it was sung by Lyle Lovett). The song reappeared in a series of other films from the early 1990s, such as My Cousin Vinny (1992), Poetic Justice (1993), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and GoldenEye (nineteen ninety five).

Tammy’s song had an answer with another song, (I’m A) Stand by My Woman Man , a song written by Kent Robbins, and recorded by Ronnie Milsap in 1976 for the RCA label. Song that also reached number one on charts in the USA and Canada.

According to Milsap, the song was “almost” a demand because the opening piano melody, played by session musician Hargus “Pig” Robbins, sounded similar to Robbins’ introduction in “Behind Closed Doors.”

Miquel Batlle Garriga
mbatllegarriga@gmail.com

Tammy Wynette – Stand By Your Man Lyrics

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman

Giving all your love to just one man

You’ll have bad times

And he’ll have good times

Doin things that you don’t understand

But if you love him

You’ll forgive him

Even though he’s hard to understand

And if you love him

Oh, be proud of him

Cause after all he’s just a man

Stand by your man

Give him two arms to cling to

And something warm to come to

When nights are cold and lonely

Stand by your man

And show the world you love him

Keep giving all the love you can

Stand by your man

Stand by your man

And show the world you love him

Keep giving all the love you can

Stand by your man