1964Released
2:39

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Stand By Your Man. By Songfacts®.

Tammy Wynette wrote this with Billy Sherrill, a producer, songwriter and record executive who signed Wynette to Epic Records after other labels rejected her. He was known for his elegant and meticulous production style (often adding strings to the mix), which was unusual in the world of country music.

The song is about sticking by your man no matter his indiscretions: 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 Wynette said that she wrote the song in 15 minutes and spent a lifetime defending it. She insisted that she had no political motive, and that it was "just a pretty love song." The women's liberation movement ("women's lib"), however, thought the sentiment in the song was contrary to their cause, and Wynette became their example of a compliant wife willing to defer to her husband. When pressed on the issue, she told Melody Maker: "I can sympathize very easily because I have seen it happen in Mississippi where I was raised, and Alabama, growing up as a child, where a woman couldn't make a third of what a man could make doing an identical job. I can sympathize with that, and I feel it's very wrong. A woman should be equal to a man for anything she's capable of doing, but I still feel there's a lot of things she isn't capable of doing. Physically. Personally, I'm not particularly fond of the thought of digging ditches or climbing telephone poles. I'd rather stick with something a little more feminine. I wouldn't want to lose the little courtesies that we've always been extended, like lighting cigarettes and opening doors, and pulling out chairs and things like that. I enjoy that. I guess I just enjoy being a woman."

This became the most successful song of Tammy Wynette's career and has been recorded by many other singers. It hit #1 on the Country charts and found a new audience when it was featured on the soundtrack of the 1970 Jack Nicholson film, Five Easy Pieces. At the time, it was the best selling single of all time by a female country artist in America.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Stand By Your Man.
AKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
105BPM

Album

The album Stand By Your Man is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Stand By Your Man.
Epic/Nashville
Originally Released 1964, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT/ (P) 1972, 193, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT/(P) 1991 KLF Communications

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