Loretta Lynn’s New ‘I Fall to Pieces’ Cover Honors BFF Patsy Cline [Watch]
Loretta Lynn's new cover of Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces," and its accompany music video honor the country icon, a good friend to Lynn decades ago. Both now-icons became buddies about two years before Cline's unexpected death in a plane crash in March of 1963.
Director Aaron Ray, of Flesh and Bones, created the new "I Fall to Pieces" video, which features custom illustrations of Lynn and Cline, accentuated by quotes from Lynn about her dear friend.
"Patsy and me together made one good woman," a quote reads at the video's start; it ends with another sweet sentiment: "I still miss her to this day."
"I Fall to Pieces" was Cline's first No. 1 hit, and was also the song that helped begin Lynn and Cline's friendship: While Cline was hospitalized following a car accident in the spring of 1961, Lynn performed the song in her honor during a live broadcast from Nashville's Ernest Tubb Record Shop.
"What a hell of a song to sing to someone who's been tore all to pieces, you know?" Lynn now reflects with a laugh — but the performance got Cline's attention, and prompted her to ask Lynn to come meet her for the first time at the hospital. "She sent her husband to get me, to come meet her," Lynn recalls, "and that's how our friendship started."
Lynn's new version of "I Fall to Pieces" was recorded at Cash Cabin Studio, located in Hendersonville, Tenn. Her daughter, Patsy Lynn Russell, and John Carter Cash, son of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, co-produced the track. The two also worked together on Lynn's Full Circle and Wouldn't It Be Great albums.
“Friendship can help us during difficult times, like what we are all going through now," Lynn says in a press release, alluding to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19)-prompted quarantine that is keeping people apart from their friends and loved ones. "I wanted to share this song and video in honor of Patsy. She was my friend, mentor, my strength, and I miss her to this day."
Lynn's version of "I Fall to Pieces" celebrates the release of her new book, Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust, which shares stories of the pair's friendship. The book was released on April 7.
See Loretta Lynn Through the Years