SummaryThe country song "D-I-V-O-R-C-E", by Nashville singer Tammy Wynette, was first heard in 1982. The female character who is in the story line (and narrating) has a son named Joe who is four years old (first line, first verse). The narrator and her husband are divorcing (first line of chorus) and so they can hide it from their child, the couple spell words out that they do not want the child to understand, such as divorce (second line, first verse). The divorce is very difficult and hard on the couple and it tears the narrator and her life apart. The narrator wishes that she did not have to divorce her husband (last two lines of chorus). .
Insights As To Why This Song May Have Been Written.
No other female country singer conveyed the emotion of heart break like Tammy . Wynette. She endeared herself millions by singing about topics of everyday life-divorce, loneliness, parenting and passion. Tammy divorced twice in her life and lived the hard times she wrote about in this song. She was a teenage bride for her first marriage and gave birth to two children within the first three years of her marriage. Her husband was unemployed most of the time. At one point Tammy and her husband and children moved into an abandoned log home with no indoor plumbing. After the birth of her third child, who was premature, Tammy's marriage crumbled. While getting her divorce, she worked ten hours a day as a hair dresser, after getting up at 4 am each day to sing on the local "Country Boy Eddie" television show.
After Tammy became famous, she married her country idol, George Jones. They created a beautiful musical union for seven years, but their marriage was more headlines than happiness and so once again Tammy divorced. These two divorces (or even just the first one) most likely motivated Tammy to write about such an emotional, weighty topic. Tammy could have been biased when writing this song and seeing divorce as "hell" (quoted from her song: third line of chorus) as both of the marriages Tammy divorced out of were shaky and unhappy.
